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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, sugar, citrus peel, flour, breadcrumbs, spices, eggs, and milk.

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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the raisins, currants, suet, sugar, lemon peel, orange peel, citron peel, flour, bread crumbs, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and salt.

  2. Add the eggs and enough milk to create a thick batter.

Boil and serve

  1. Dip a cloth in boiling water, sprinkle with flour, and place the mixture in the center.

  2. Tie the cloth loosely and boil in a pot of water for 4.5 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 add structure as they set during boiling.
Suet
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender as it cooks.
Flour
Absorbs liquid and gives the pudding its body so it holds together.
Bread crumbs
Soak up moisture and lighten the texture of the dense batter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the spices and dried fruit.
Raisins
Provide chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth loosely. The pudding swells as it cooks, so a tight cloth can restrict expansion and make the texture dense or split the cloth. Leaving room lets it expand while still holding its shape.

Swap the currant

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

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

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