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Dessert

Rich Plum Pudding

A sweet, spiced pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, almonds, flour, bread crumbs, preserved citrus, sugar, eggs, milk, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Rich Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ingredients

  1. Stone and wash the raisins and currants.

  2. Chop the suet and almonds finely.

  3. Mix the chopped ingredients with the flour and soaked bread crumbs until well combined.

  4. Add the preserved peels and mixed spice to the mixture.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the sugar and eggs together until well combined.

  6. Stir the egg mixture into the pudding mixture, adding milk to achieve a thick batter consistency.

  7. Pour the brandy over the fruit and spice mixture.

  8. Let the mixture sit for 3-4 hours, stirring occasionally.

Boil and serve

  1. Tie the pudding mixture in a cloth.

  2. Boil for 5 hours.

  3. Turn the pudding out onto a dish.

  4. Sift sugar over the top.

  5. Serve with wine sauce.

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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  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 batter and add structure and richness as the pudding sets.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk, they add moisture and a tender crumb to the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long boiling.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together after boiling.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the pudding.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and a deep, molasses-like flavor to the batter.

The step that matters

Boiling the pudding in a cloth. The cloth must be tied loosely enough for the pudding to swell, and the water must keep boiling steadily for the full five hours. Otherwise the pudding can turn heavy, soggy or uneven in texture.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, beef, almond, flour, bread, milk, orange):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, beef, almond, flour, bread, milk, orange. 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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