Name: Poor Man's Plum Pudding
Ingredients: 1 stale loaf of bread, sliced thin; 1 cup stoned raisins; 1 cup currants, washed and picked; 1 large cup molasses; 1 tablespoon butter; ½ teaspoon powdered cloves; 1 grated nutmeg

Why it works: Clove and nutmeg 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 ↓

Poor Man's Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread

Pour a little boiling water over the sliced bread and cover it closely.
Let it stand until softened.
Mash the softened bread until smooth.

Mix and boil

Add the molasses, raisins, currants, butter, cloves, and nutmeg, and mix well.
Boil the mixture in a pudding cloth for 1 hour.

Serve

Serve with a hot brown sugar sauce.

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.

Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,070 recipes

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

Stale bread: Provides the bulk and body of the pudding once softened and mashed.
Molasses: Adds dark colour, sweetness and a rich, moist texture.
Raisins: Add chewy texture and natural sweetness.
Currants: Add small chewy bursts of fruit flavour and moisture.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender crumb.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, raisin, molasses, butter, clove, nutmeg):

Figfits better
Vanillafits better
Applefits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, raisin, molasses, butter, clove, nutmeg. 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.