Why it works: Vanilla and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Prune Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the prunes
Cook the prunes in water until very soft.
Pass the prunes through a colander and sweeten with sugar and vanilla.
Bake
Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold in the prunes.
Transfer the mixture to a baking dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) until a straw comes out clean.
Prepare a custard with the egg yolks and pour it over the baked prunes.
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.
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Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together27,347 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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 the main body, sweetness and moisture of the pudding.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they give the pudding its light, airy structure.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the custard topping, adding richness and helping it set when baked.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whites that are under-whipped will not hold air and the pudding will be dense; over-whipped whites turn grainy and collapse. Folding gently keeps the air in the mixture.
“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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