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Dessert

Prune Pudding

A yeast-based pudding made with prunes, sugar, lemon, and milk, topped with a butter‑sugar‑lemon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Prune Pudding

Why it works: Butter and milk 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the prunes

  1. Rinse prunes in cold water.

  2. Pour boiling water over the prunes.

  3. Add sugar, lemon rind, and juice.

  4. Cook gently for 4–5 hours in an earthen dish.

Make the batter

  1. Melt butter in lukewarm scalded milk.

  2. Add yeast cake, sugar, and salt.

  3. When dissolved, add the beaten egg.

  4. Stir in flour and mix thoroughly, then cover.

  5. Let rise in a warm place (90°F) for 1 hour.

  6. Stir the batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour one third over the cooled prunes in a pudding dish.

  2. Sprinkle with sugar and lemon rind, then cover.

  3. Let rise for another hour.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F) for 20–25 minutes, uncovered.

  5. For the sauce, mix butter, flour, sugar, lemon juice, prune juice, and enough boiling water to make 1 cup, then boil.

  6. Serve hot.

  7. Pour remaining batter into patty pans and let rise.

  8. Bake as well.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Yeast cake
Produces gas that makes the batter rise and become light.
Egg
Adds structure and richness to the batter as it sets.
Flour
Forms the batter's structure and, in the sauce, thickens when boiled.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.
Prunes
Provide the fruit base, with natural sweetness and moisture that soften during slow cooking.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce. Flour must reach a full boil to thicken the sauce and cook out its raw, pasty taste. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin and floury.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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