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Prune Pudding

A baked pudding made with eggs, sugar, stewed prunes, milk, and cornstarch.

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

Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Prune Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a saucepan, heat the milk to boiling point.

  3. In a small bowl, mix the cornstarch with a little cold milk until smooth.

Make the custard

  1. Stir the cornstarch mixture into the boiling milk and let it come to a boil.

  2. Add the prunes and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish and bake for 15 minutes.

  2. Serve with cream.

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. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 it bakes, giving the pudding its body and firm texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the prunes.
Stewed prunes
Provide the main fruit flavour and a soft, moist texture throughout the pudding.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornstarch thickens and the eggs set.
Cornstarch
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth, creamy custard as the starch gelatinises.

The step that matters

Stirring the cornstarch into the boiling milk. Cornstarch must be fully dispersed in liquid before heating, and the mixture must reach a boil so the starch granules swell and thicken. Adding it lumpy or without stirring leads to clumps and a thin pudding.

“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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