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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, molasses, milk, flour, egg, raisins, walnuts, spices, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the chopped suet, molasses, milk, flour, egg, raisins, walnuts, spices, and salt. Mix until well combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for about 2 to 3 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and milk acid to lift and lighten the dense batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Egg
Binds the ingredients and helps set the pudding's structure as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture, and gives a deep flavor.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the milk. Baking soda needs an acid to react and lift the batter. Dissolving it fully in the milk first spreads it evenly so the pudding rises uniformly rather than in patches.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, flour, egg, raisin):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Nutsfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, flour, egg, raisin. 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.

More plum pudding recipes

English 165Christmas 156Sauce 71Eggless 34Baked 33Vegetable 19 See all 649 →

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