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Dessert

Prune Pudding

A pudding made from stewed prunes, pecan, chocolate, vanilla, sugar, and egg whites, boiled for three hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Prune Pudding

Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Prune Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prunes

  1. Stew the prunes the day before and remove the pits.

  2. Mash the prunes, using very little of the juice.

Make and cook the pudding

  1. Mix all ingredients, adding the beaten egg whites last.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold, filling it only halfway.

  3. Boil in water for 3 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold with whipped 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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 moisture, body and natural sweetness to the pudding.
Egg whites
Trap air when beaten, giving the pudding its light, set structure.
Pecan meat
Adds fat and a contrasting crunchy texture to the soft pudding.
Sweet chocolate
Adds rich flavor and fat, deepening the sweetness of the dish.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the tartness of the prunes.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg whites last. Beaten egg whites hold air bubbles that give the pudding lift. Stirring them in too hard or too long deflates the foam, leaving a dense result. Fold them in gently and stop once just combined.

“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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