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Dessert

Jellied Prune Pudding

A chilled pudding made from stewed prunes, gelatin, brandy, and lemon, topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Jellied Prune Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the prune base

  1. Stew the prunes in 1 pint of water until nearly tender.

  2. Add the sugar and continue to stew until soft.

  3. Remove the stones and cut each prune into 4 pieces.

  4. Dissolve the gelatine in ½ cup of cold water. Heat and stir until melted.

  5. Strain the gelatine into the prunes.

  6. Add the brandy.

Mould and set

  1. Rinse a border mold with cold water.

  2. Fill the mold with the prune mixture.

  3. Set the mold on ice to harden.

Finish and serve

  1. Whip the cream.

  2. Add a little lemon juice and grated lemon peel.

  3. Turn the pudding out of the mold.

  4. Heap the cream in the center.

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

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

  2. Brandy + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Brandy + lemontop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 fruit flavor of the pudding.
Gelatine
Sets the prune mixture so it holds its shape when turned out.
Sugar
Sweetens the stewed prunes and balances their tartness.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, soft texture to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Set the mold on ice to harden. Gelatine only sets properly when the mixture is cold enough; if the prune mixture is not chilled fully, the pudding may be soft and fail to hold its shape when turned out.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (brandy, sugar, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar, cream. 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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