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Dessert

English Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, candied peel, sugar, flour, bread crumbs, lemon rind, almonds, spices, eggs, brandy, and wine.

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 ↓

English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, mix the raisins, currants, suet, candied peel, sugar, flour, bread crumbs, lemon rind, bitter almonds, nutmeg, and allspice.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, brandy, sweet wine, and sweet milk if needed. Mix well.

  3. Butter a mold and tie it down tightly.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the pudding for 10 hours.

  2. Serve with brandy sauce.

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. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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 help the pudding set as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a soft, tender body.
Flour
Adds structure so the pudding holds its shape when cooked.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Moist sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds moisture and depth of flavour.
Raisins
Provide chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Tying the mold down tightly. A loose cover lets steam and water into the pudding during long boiling, making it soggy and heavy. A tight seal keeps the moisture in and the texture even.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

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