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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed suet pudding with currants, raisins, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix suet, flour, currants, raisins, sugar, salt, and spices in a bowl.

  2. Add the well-beaten egg and enough milk to make a stiff batter.

Boil the pudding

  1. Flour a cloth well.

  2. Pour the pudding mixture into the cloth.

  3. Tie the cloth securely, leaving room for expansion.

  4. Place the cloth in a kettle with a saucer at the bottom to prevent burning.

  5. Pour enough boiling water to cover the bag completely.

  6. Turn the bag several times to keep the water boiling.

  7. Open the bag slightly to let steam escape.

  8. Serve immediately after boiling for one and a half 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Melts during boiling, keeping the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the stiff batter together as it cooks.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set firm when boiled.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to the pudding's rich flavour.
Currants
Add concentrated fruit sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling throughout the cooking. Steam cooks the pudding evenly, and water that drops below a boil slows cooking and leaves the pudding heavy and underdone. Turning the bag and allowing steam to escape helps maintain a steady boil.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, raisin, sugar, cinnamon, allspice, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, raisin, sugar, cinnamon, allspice, 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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