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Dessert

Prune Pudding

A baked pudding made with sweet milk, butter, eggs, stewed prunes, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 5 ingredients
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Prune Pudding

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Prune Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat a little more than a pint of sweet milk to the boiling point.

  2. Stir in gradually a little cold milk in which you have rubbed smooth a heaping tablespoonful of cornstarch.

  3. Add sugar to suit your taste, three well-beaten eggs, about a teaspoonful of butter, and a little grated nutmeg.

  4. Let this come to a boil.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour it into a buttered pudding-dish, first adding a cupful of stewed prunes, with the stones taken out.

  2. Bake for fifteen to twenty minutes, according to the state of the oven.

  3. Serve with or without sauce.

  4. A little cream improves it if poured over it when placed in saucers.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

341Calories
14 gProtein
26 gFat
14 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Prunenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving it body and a tender, sliceable texture.
Cornstarch (in the method)
Thickens the milk when boiled, giving the pudding its smooth, spoonable body.
Stewed prunes
Add fruit flavour and soft moisture, with a sweet, tangy depth through the pudding.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornstarch thickens and the eggs set.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounder, fuller flavour to the custard.

The step that matters

Let this come to a boil. Cornstarch only thickens fully once the mixture reaches a boil. Stopping early leaves it thin and starchy-tasting, while the eggs in the mixture can curdle if heated too hard or too long.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, egg):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg. 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.

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