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Dessert

Chhap Plum Pudding

A steamed plum pudding made with flour, suet, raisins, molasses, milk, and an egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Chhap Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and cinnamon.

  2. Add the suet, raisins, egg, molasses, and milk. Mix until well combined.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 3 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas as the batter heats, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set firm as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding tender and moist.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth of flavour, and moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Steam for 3 hours. Steaming cooks the batter with moist heat, so it sets evenly and stays moist rather than drying out. The long time lets the centre cook fully inside the mold.

“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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