A domed mid-brown plum pudding studded with raisins and currants on a white china dish dusted with sugar, with blue rum flames around its base. — Plum pudding flaming with rum.

Plum Pudding with Rum (1868)

Name: Plum Pudding with Rum
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 4 h
Total time: 4 h 35 min
Cuisine: British
Ingredients: Butter, for the basin; 6 oz beef suet, finely chopped, or shredded suet; 6 oz raisins; 6 oz currants; 2 oz candied orange peel and citron, finely diced; 6 oz granulated sugar; 6 oz fresh white breadcrumbs; 1 russet apple, peeled, cored and finely diced; Finely grated zest of ½ lemon; 2 whole cloves, finely ground; 1 pinch salt; 3 eggs; 1.25 fl oz dark rum for the mixture; 0.5 oz granulated sugar, for the dish; 3 fl oz dark rum for flaming

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Jules Gouffé’s plum pudding with rum, 1868: suet, raisins, currants, candied peel, breadcrumbs and apple, mixed with rum, boiled four hours in a mold and flamed with warm rum at the table.

By The Forgotten MenuPublished Oct 22, 2026

Recipe makes: One 2½-pint pudding, 10 servings
Prep: 30 min
Cook: 4 hr
Total: 4 hr 35 min

The pudding steams for 4 hours; keep a kettle hot for topping up the pot. It can be made a day or two ahead, chilled, and steamed again for about 1½ hours before serving.

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Plum pudding flaming with rum.

The story behind the recipe

Plum pudding was English, but by 1870 Parisians knew it. “Since the Empire introduced English ways here,” Henry Labouchere wrote from the besieged city on Christmas Day, “plum-pudding and mincepies have been eaten, and even Christmas-trees have flourished.” That year the trees were shunned as “an invention of the detested foe,” and the puddings, he expected, “will appear on few tables.” The English in Paris made do with stranger Christmas dinners, camel among them, as What Did Paris Eat Under Siege in 1870? recounts.

A Paris chef’s English pudding

Jules Gouffé, chef de cuisine of the Paris Jockey Club, put two plum puddings in his Royal Cookery Book of 1868, the English edition of his Livre de cuisine. Both start the same way: equal weights of suet, raisins, currants, sugar and breadcrumbs, three-quarters of a pound each, with candied orange peel and citron, diced russet apples, lemon peel, cloves, six eggs and a little rum. One is served with a Madeira custard sauce. The other is turned out onto a hot dish sprinkled with sugar, with half a pint of warm rum poured around it, to “light it when putting the pudding on the table.” The book boils it for four hours in a stockpot with a small baking sheet upside down in the bottom, topping up the boiling water as it goes.

Making it today

This is half of his pudding, which fits a 2½-pint basin and serves ten. We steam it in a covered pot with the water partway up the basin, a gentler version of his boil, and we flame it with three fluid ounces of rum instead of his scaled five, which is plenty for a good flame and safer to handle. The ingredients and the four hours come straight from the book. Shredded suet from a box works if a butcher can’t supply fresh beef suet; vegetarian suet does too. With no spirits in it, the Plum Pudding with Sweet Sauce (1912) (opens in a new tab) from the Titanic’s third-class menu, on TuneMyRecipe, is the plainer English cousin of this one.

The pudding needs the same big stockpot as the Pot-au-Feu (1868), so steam the pudding a day ahead, then reheat it on the day in a second large pan while the soup has the stockpot.

Take: ¾ lb. of picked and finely chopped suet; ¾ lb. of stoned raisins; ...

Jules GoufféThe Royal Cookery Book (London: Sampson Low, 1868), Plum Pudding with Rum, p. 600

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Ingredients

For One 2½-pint pudding, 10 servings. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for One 2½-pint pudding, 10 servings.

Pudding

Butter, for the basin
Beef suet, finely chopped, or shredded suet6 oz
Raisins6 oz
Currants6 oz
Candied orange peel and citron, finely diced2 oz
Granulated sugar6 oz
Fresh white breadcrumbs6 oz
Russet apple, peeled, cored and finely diced1
Finely grated zest of ½ lemon
Cloves, finely ground2
Salt1 pinch
Eggs3
Dark rum for the mixture1 1/4 fl oz

To serve

Granulated sugar, for the dish0.5 oz
Dark rum for flaming3 fl oz

Ingredients as written here

Butter, for the basin
6 oz beef suet, finely chopped, or shredded suet
6 oz raisins
6 oz currants
2 oz candied orange peel and citron, finely diced
6 oz granulated sugar
6 oz fresh white breadcrumbs
1 russet apple, peeled, cored and finely diced
Finely grated zest of ½ lemon
2 whole cloves, finely ground
1 pinch salt
3 eggs
1.25 fl oz dark rum for the mixture
0.5 oz granulated sugar, for the dish
3 fl oz dark rum for flaming

Equipment

2½-pint (1.4-liter) pudding basin or heatproof bowl
Parchment paper, foil and kitchen string
Large stockpot with a lid
Trivet, upturned saucer or folded cloth for the bottom of the pot
Kettle
Small saucepan
Warm serving dish
Long match or lighter

Instructions

Butter the basin well and put a round of buttered parchment in the bottom.
In a large bowl, mix the suet, raisins, currants, candied peel, sugar, breadcrumbs, apple, lemon zest, cloves and salt thoroughly.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing each in well, then stir in the rum for the mixture.
Pack the mixture into the basin; it should come to about an inch below the rim. Cover with a sheet of buttered parchment and a sheet of foil, both folded with a pleat across the middle so the pudding can rise, and tie them on firmly under the rim with string.
Put the trivet in the stockpot, set the basin on it, and pour in boiling water to come halfway up the basin. Cover the pot and keep the water at a steady simmer for 4 hours, topping it up with boiling water from the kettle whenever it drops. The pudding is done when a skewer pushed into the center comes out clean and hot.
Lift out the basin, remove the covers and run a knife around the edge. Turn the pudding out onto the warm dish and sprinkle the dish around it with the sugar.
Warm the rum for flaming in the small saucepan over low heat until just warm to the touch, then take the pan off the heat and away from any flame. Pour it around the pudding, carry it to the table and light it at once with a long match, keeping your face and sleeves clear. Serve when the flames die down.

Nutrition

410calories per serving

Recipe makes: One 2½-pint pudding, 10 servings
Servings: 10

Estimated per serving from USDA FoodData Central values for the listed ingredients, counting most of the flamed rum as burned off.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

This is half of Gouffé’s pudding. His full quantity needs a basin of about 5 pints and the same four hours.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.

Never pour rum from the bottle near a flame. Leftover pudding keeps well wrapped in the refrigerator for a week; reheat slices in a steamer or a covered dish. Contains wheat and egg; beef suet is not vegetarian.

Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment.

Sources and attribution

After Jules Gouffé, The Royal Cookery Book, trans. Alphonse Gouffé (London: Sampson Low, 1868), Plum Pudding with Rum

How we research

Recipe details

Course: Dessert
Dish family: Desserts & Sweets
Region: British
Era: 19th century
Source decade: 1860s
Main ingredient: Fruit Wine & spirits
Difficulty: Intermediate
Occasion: Christmas