Why it works: Cranberry and sugar work together. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
275 Prune Tarts
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the prunes
Scald the prunes.
Remove the stones and kernels.
Combine the prunes and kernels with cranberry juice and sugar.
Simmer for 10 minutes, then let cool.
Fill the tarts
Use the mixture to fill the tarts.
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.
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Cranberry + sugartop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Prunes
- Provide the main fruit body, sweetness and a soft, jammy filling when simmered.
- Cranberry juice
- Adds moisture and a tart acidity that balances the sweetness of the prunes.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps thicken the filling as it simmers.
- Short pastry
- Forms the crisp, buttery case that holds the cooled prune filling.
The step that matters
Simmer for 10 minutes, then let cool. Simmering softens the prunes and lets the juices reduce into a thick filling. The mixture must cool before going into the pastry, otherwise the heat can soften the short pastry and make the base soggy.
“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.
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