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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, bread crumbs, sugar, dried fruit, spices, milk, eggs, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Combine suet, bread crumbs, sugar, raisins, currants, citron, and candied lemon peel in a large bowl.

  2. Mix milk, eggs, cinnamon, cloves, mace, grated nutmeg, and baking soda in another bowl.

  3. Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and mix well.

Steam

  1. Transfer the mixture into a well-buttered mold.

  2. Steam the pudding for 8 hours.

Cream and flavor

  1. Beat together sugar and butter until creamy.

  2. Mix in the egg yolks and flavor with lemon.

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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Bread crumbs
Provides body and soaks up the liquid, giving the pudding its structure.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set it into a firm, sliceable texture.
Milk
Supplies moisture that hydrates the crumbs and keeps the batter loose.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the spices.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding for 8 hours. Gentle, steady steam heats the batter slowly so it sets evenly without drying out or scorching. The mold should be tightly covered so moisture stays in and the pudding cooks through.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, raisin, lemon, milk, egg, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, raisin, lemon, milk, egg, cinnamon. 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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