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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, raisins, currants, suet, flour, eggs, mixed peel, brown sugar, nutmeg, brandy, apples, and milk or molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 pudding

  1. In a large bowl, combine bread crumbs, raisins, currants, suet, flour, eggs, mixed peel, brown sugar, salt, nutmeg, brandy, and chopped apples.

  2. Mix well until all ingredients are thoroughly combined. Add a little milk or molasses to achieve a moist consistency.

Boil and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pudding cloth or mold.

  2. Boil for 6 hours, or if prepared in advance, boil for 4 hours and then reheat for 2 hours before serving.

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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it into a firm, sliceable pudding as they cook.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding body and a tender texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavor.
Raisins
Provide chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Flour
Helps bind and stabilize the mixture so it holds its shape.

The step that matters

Boil for the full time. Long, steady boiling cooks the eggs and starches through and drives the pudding to a firm, cohesive set. If the water is allowed to drop below a gentle boil, the pudding can cook unevenly and turn out dense or soggy.

Swap the currant

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

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

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