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Dessert

Christmas Plum Pudding

A steamed dessert made with butter, suet, sugar, sourdough, raisins, currants, citron, eggs, milk, nutmeg, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Christmas Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy in a large bowl.

  2. Add the chopped suet and mix well.

  3. Stir in the sourdough, raisins, currants, and shredded citron.

  4. Combine the beaten egg whites and yolks in a separate bowl, then add to the mixture.

  5. Pour in the milk and add the nutmeg and cloves, mixing until well combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a greased pudding mold and cover tightly.

  2. Steam for several hours until cooked through.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set during steaming.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and carries flavor through the batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps cream the butter into a light base.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long cooking.
Sourdough
Provides the bulk structure that holds the fruit and liquid together.

The step that matters

Steam until cooked through. Steaming gently over long periods cooks the eggs and bread evenly without drying the pudding. Cooking too briefly leaves the centre raw and wet, while the mold must be sealed so steam, not air, cooks it.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, raisin, egg, milk, nutmeg, clove):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, raisin, egg, milk, nutmeg, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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