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Dessert

Mothee Snow's Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, flour, suet, raisins, currants, citron, apples, fruit juice, milk, brown sugar, nutmeg, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Mothee Snow's Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the bread crumbs, flour, suet, raisins, currants, citron, apples, fruit juice, salt, milk, brown sugar, and nutmeg. Mix in the beaten eggs until well combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture into a floured cloth or mold.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil for 3 hours. Serve with 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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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 as they set during cooking.
Suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist and tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the liquids and give the pudding its body.
Flour
Adds structure that helps the pudding hold its shape.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavor.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Transfer the mixture into a floured cloth or mold. The cloth or mold must be well floured and packed firmly so the pudding holds its shape while boiling. A loose or poorly sealed wrap can let water seep in and make the pudding soggy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, flour, raisin, apple, milk, sugar, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, raisin, apple, milk, sugar, nutmeg. 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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