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Dessert

Old English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, sugar, bread crumbs, flour, spices, eggs, and flavored with coffee, molasses, and cider.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 ↓

Old English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Mix all ingredients thoroughly and let sit in a warm place overnight.

  2. Put the mixture into a mold or pudding bag, tie tightly, and boil gently for 12 hours.

Serve

  1. To serve, make a sauce with flour, water, butter, and sugar flavored with brandy.

  2. Place the pudding on a hot dish, stick a sprig of berryed holly in the center, pour ⅓ cup brandy around it, and set fire to it.

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

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

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

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

  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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and give the pudding its set structure as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, giving the pudding a soft, cohesive texture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture with a deep flavor.
Raisins
Provide chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.
Flour
Adds structure, helping the pudding hold its shape when boiled.

The step that matters

Boiling gently for 12 hours. A hard boil can break the mixture apart and make the pudding dense or watery. Keeping the water at a gentle simmer for the full time cooks the eggs and starch evenly, giving a firm, moist result.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, beef, sugar, bread, flour, lemon, nutmeg. 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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