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Dessert

Plum Pudding

A steamed fruit and suet pudding made with raisins, currants, citron, and spices, served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a large bowl, mix the raisins, currants, citron, suet, flour, bread crumbs, sugar, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, lemon peel, and salt thoroughly.

  2. Add the eggs and enough milk to moisten the mixture to the stiffness of fruit cake.

Cook and serve

  1. Tie the mixture in a well-floured pudding cloth.

  2. Boil the pudding for at least 8 hours.

  3. Serve with a nice 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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 the pudding sets while cooking.
Suet
Adds richness and fat, keeping the pudding moist and tender during long cooking.
Flour
Provides structure, helping the pudding hold its shape after boiling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help give the pudding a soft, cohesive body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning and flavour during cooking.

The step that matters

Boil the pudding for at least 8 hours. Long, steady boiling cooks the dense fruit and flour mixture all the way through. Letting the water drop below a simmer or stopping early can leave the centre heavy and underdone.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, beef, flour, bread, sugar, nutmeg, 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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