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Dessert

Nonpareil Plum Pudding

A plum pudding made with raisins, currants, candied peel, spices, suet, and eggs, boiled for six hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Nonpareil Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs very stiff, yolks and whites separately.

  2. Add the spices, salt, and peels to the egg mixture.

  3. Mix in the sugar, raisins, and currants.

  4. Stir in the bread crumbs and suet.

  5. Finally, add the lemon juice, brandy, and wine; beat until smooth.

Boil and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding cloth, bag, or mold.

  2. Boil for 6 hours.

  3. Serve with wine, hard sauce, or any preferred accompaniment.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  4. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped stiff, they lighten the batter and help bind the dense fruit and crumbs.
Fine bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding its body and crumb structure.
Suet
Melts during boiling, adding richness and a moist, tender texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the pudding and dissolves easily into the batter.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness, chewiness, and moisture to the pudding.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and helps preserve the pudding.

The step that matters

Beat the eggs very stiff, yolks and whites separately. Whipping the whites to stiff peaks and keeping the yolks separate traps air that lightens the heavy batter. Under-beaten eggs leave the pudding dense.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, orange, lemon, nutmeg, cinnamon, bread, sugar. 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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