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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with soda crackers, milk, eggs, suet, dried fruit, spices, wine, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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

Mix the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, combine soda crackers, milk, beaten eggs, suet, raisins, currants, citron, apple, flour, cloves, mace, cinnamon, wine, and brandy.

Wrap and boil

  1. Take a square of unbleached cotton cloth, round off each corner, and dip it in water.

  2. Lay the cloth in a pan and cover it with flour using your hand.

  3. Place the pudding mixture in the center of the cloth, gather the edges, and tie securely with a strong cord.

  4. Put the pudding into a kettle of boiling water and ensure the water continues to boil for 4 hours.

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 + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  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 mixture and add structure as the pudding sets during boiling.
Suet
Adds fat and richness, giving the pudding a moist, tender texture.
Soda crackers
Soak up the milk and help give the pudding body.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture.
Flour
Helps thicken the mixture and gives the pudding its body.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling for the full 4 hours. Steady boiling cooks the pudding through evenly. If the water drops below a boil, the pudding cooks unevenly and may turn out heavy or underdone in the center. Top up with boiling water as needed.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, raisin, currant, apple, flour, 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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