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Dessert

Prune Pudding

A baked dessert made with prunes, egg whites, powdered sugar, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Prune Pudding

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Prune Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the prunes

  1. Cook the prunes until tender.

  2. Cool the prunes.

  3. Remove the seeds and chop the prunes finely.

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Add the powdered sugar to the egg whites and stir well.

  3. Mix in the cream of tartar and the chopped prunes.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 45 minutes.

  2. Serve hot or cold.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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 body, sweetness and fruity flavour of the pudding.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they give the pudding its light, airy structure as they set.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the whipped whites and helps keep the foam stable.
Cream of tartar
Stabilises the whipped egg whites, helping the foam hold its volume.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to stiff peaks without deflating, since their foam supplies nearly all the lift. Any grease or yolk in the bowl can prevent proper whipping, and folding gently afterward keeps the air in the mixture.

“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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