Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Prune Roly-poly Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the prunes.
Stone the prunes.
Blanch the kernels.
Make the filling
Place the blanched kernels in a pot with the prunes, sugar, water, and port.
Boil until the mixture thickens to a paste.
Assemble and boil
Roll out the pastry to ⅓ inch thick.
Spread the fruit mixture on the pastry.
Moisten the edges.
Roll it up tightly.
Secure the ends.
Tie the pudding in a floured cloth.
Plunge the pudding into boiling water.
Boil for about 2.5 hours.
Serve
Serve with wine sauce.
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.
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Prunes
- Form the bulk of the filling and, as they soften, give it sweetness and a thick, spreadable body.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the prunes.
- Port
- Adds fruity, aromatic depth and liquid that helps the prunes soften.
- Blanched kernels (in the method)
- Add a nutty, almond-like flavour to the fruit filling.
- Pastry
- Wraps the filling and holds its shape during long boiling.
The step that matters
Boil the filling until it thickens to a paste. Cooking drives off moisture and softens the fruit, so the filling becomes thick enough to stay inside the roll. A loose, watery filling can soak the pastry and leak out during rolling and boiling.
“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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