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A Christmas Plum Pudding

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Christmas Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the suet, raisins, currants, mixed candied peel, sugar, lemon rind, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, flour, and bread crumbs together in a large bowl.

  2. Add the lemon juice and brandy, and stir for five minutes.

  3. Prepare a pudding mold by greasing it and covering it with a buttered paper and floured muslin.

  4. Place a saucer upside down in a saucepan and add enough water to cover it by three inches.

  5. Bring the water to a boil, then place the mold on the saucer, cover the saucepan, and steam gently until the pudding is cooked, adding more boiling water as needed.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar, lemon, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, lemon, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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