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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed dessert made with bread crumbs, currants, suet, raisins, molasses, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped bread crumbs, currants, chopped suet, raisins, and molasses.

  2. Add the baking soda, salt, sour milk, cinnamon, and cloves, and mix well.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam the pudding for 4 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Currant + raisintop 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

Bread crumbs
Provide body and bulk that hold the batter together.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to lighten the pudding.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding for 4 hours. Steaming must be gentle and continuous so the pudding cooks through evenly without drying out. Water level and steam must be kept up over the full time, since a long, uneven steam can leave the center dense or the outside dry.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, raisin, molasses, milk, cinnamon, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, raisin, molasses, milk, cinnamon, clove. 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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