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Dessert

Cream Prune Pie

A pie with prune filling and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla 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 ↓

Cream Prune Pie

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 filling

  1. Cook prunes with a little sugar until done, then stone and press through a coarse sieve or colander.

  2. In a bowl, combine 1 cup of prune pulp, 1 cup of cream or rich milk, and the beaten yolks of 3 eggs.

  3. Add vanilla and salt, then pour into a pie crust.

Bake and top with meringue

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until set.

  2. Whip the egg whites until stiff, gradually adding 2 tablespoons of sugar to make meringue.

  3. Spread meringue on top of the pie and brown lightly.

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.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla 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 flavour and body of the filling once cooked and pressed into pulp.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard-like filling as they set during baking.
Cream or rich milk
Adds richness and moisture, giving the filling a soft, smooth texture.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar to form a stable meringue that browns on top.
Sugar
Sweetens the prunes and helps the whipped egg whites hold their stiff structure.

The step that matters

Whip the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten to stiff peaks with sugar added gradually so the meringue holds its shape and browns evenly instead of weeping or collapsing.

“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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