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Dessert

Christmas Plum Pudding

A steamed dessert made with raisins, currants, suet, bread crumbs, flour, candied peel, nutmeg, brown sugar, eggs, and brandy, served with caramel sauce.

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 ↓

Christmas Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Combine raisins, currants, suet, bread crumbs, flour, candied peel, grated nutmeg, brown sugar, and eggs in a large bowl.

  2. Mix well and pour in the brandy.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold and cover tightly.

  4. Boil for 6 hours.

Steam and make the sauce

  1. Steam for an additional 2 to 3 hours when ready to serve.

  2. For the caramel sauce, melt butter in a saucepan.

  3. Stir in brown sugar and cornstarch until browned.

  4. Add boiling water and brandy, stirring until smooth.

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 + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help give the pudding its set structure.
Bread crumbs
Soak up liquid and add body to the dense, moist pudding.
Raisins
Provide sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and molasses flavour, and helps with browning.
Cornstarch
Thickens the caramel sauce so it becomes smooth and pourable.

The step that matters

Boil for 6 hours. The long, gentle cooking sets the eggs and crumbs into a firm, cohesive pudding. Water must be topped up so the mold does not boil dry or cook unevenly.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, bread, flour, brandy, nutmeg, sugar, 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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