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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, suet, currants, raisins, candied peel, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix the dry ingredients well and let them stand for several hours.

  2. Add the eggs one by one, stirring well after each addition.

  3. If the mixture is not moist enough, add another egg or a little milk.

Boil and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into a well-buttered mold and tie it securely.

  2. Boil for 10 hours.

  3. Serve with sweet 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Flour + carrottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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 add structure and richness as the pudding sets.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long cooking.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and lighten the texture of the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning and flavor.

The step that matters

Boil for 10 hours. The pudding must stay submerged in gently simmering water for the full time so heat cooks it evenly and the long steam gently sets the dense mixture. Letting the water boil dry or drop too low can scorch or leave the centre underdone.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Carrotthe original

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