Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Prune Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the prunes
Stew the prunes until very soft.
Strain the prunes, remove the stones, and mash them.
Make the pudding
Beat the egg whites until very light.
Add the sugar to the egg whites and stir in the mashed prunes.
Bake for 20 minutes.
Serve
Serve with whipped cream.
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.
-
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together42,166 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
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, moisture, and sweet fruit flavour of the pudding.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to a light foam, they give the pudding its airy, lifted structure as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.
The step that matters
Beat the egg whites until very light. Egg whites hold air only when whipped to a stable foam. Under-beaten whites collapse, leaving a dense pudding, while folding in the heavy prune purée too roughly knocks out the air built up during whipping.
“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 prune pudding recipes
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.