Name: Old English Plum Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pound raisins, stoned; 1 pound currants, washed; 1 pound suet, finely chopped; ¼ pound flour or finely crumbed bread; 3 ounces sugar; 1½ ounces grated lemon peel; 1 blade mace; ½ small nutmeg, grated; 6 eggs, beaten

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 ↓

Old English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix

In a large bowl, combine the raisins, currants, and chopped suet.
Add the flour or bread crumbs, sugar, lemon peel, mace, nutmeg, and beaten eggs.
Mix everything well together until fully combined.

Boil

Place the mixture into a cloth and tie it securely, leaving room for expansion.
Boil the pudding in water for at least 5 hours, ensuring it continues to boil until done.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the mixture together and add structure as the pudding sets.
Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Flour or bread crumbs: Absorbs moisture and gives the pudding body so it holds its shape.
Raisins: Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Currants: Add concentrated fruit flavor and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil the pudding in water for at least 5 hours. The pudding must stay at a steady boil for the full time, because the long gentle cooking sets the eggs and cooks the dense mixture through. Letting the water drop below boiling can leave the center underdone.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, currant, flour, sugar, lemon, nutmeg, egg):

Cinnamonfits better
Allspicefits better
Cardamomfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, currant, flour, sugar, lemon, nutmeg, egg. 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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Old English Plum Pudding