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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, apples, sugar, candied peel, spices, brandy, eggs, flour, and water.

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

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine raisins, currants, minced apples, sugar, candied peel, spice, and salt.

  2. Add brandy and eggs, mixing well.

Boil the pudding

  1. Lightly flour a stout cloth and tie the pudding up in it.

  2. Place a plate in the bottom of a saucepan filled with boiling water.

  3. Boil the pudding for 3.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with Punch sauce or German 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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  4. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

  5. Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the fruit mixture and help it set as it cooks.
Flour
Dusts the cloth so the pudding releases cleanly and forms a firm outer skin.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tart fruit and spices.
Raisins
Contribute chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruity sweetness.
Minced apples
Add moisture and a light tartness to the fruit mixture.

The step that matters

Keep the pudding boiling in the saucepan for the full 3.5 hours. Steady boiling water cooks the pudding evenly and sets it through. The plate keeps the cloth off the hot base so it does not scorch, and the water level needs topping up so the pudding stays submerged.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

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