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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A boiled plum pudding made with raisins, currants, sultanas, suet, bread crumbs, flour, mixed peel, almonds, brandy, rum, lemon juice, lemon rind, eggs, and spices.

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

Make the mixture

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, raisins, currants, sultanas, suet, bread crumbs, flour, mixed peel, almonds, brandy, rum, lemon juice, lemon rind, and eggs, then add spices to taste and combine thoroughly.

Steam the puddings

  1. Grease pudding molds and fill them with the mixture.

  2. Cover the molds lightly with cloths and boil for 6 to 7 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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Brandy + rumtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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 help set the pudding as it cooks.
Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture to the pudding.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquids and give the pudding body and structure.
Flour
Helps bind the fruit and crumbs and gives the pudding structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the pudding moist.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor while helping preserve the pudding.

The step that matters

Cover the molds lightly with cloths and boil for 6 to 7 hours. Long, gentle boiling cooks the eggs and starches through slowly, setting the pudding without drying it out. Covering loosely lets steam circulate while leaving room for the pudding to expand, so the molds should not be sealed tightly.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, bread, flour, almond, brandy, rum. 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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