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Dessert

Prune Pudding, No. 1

A baked pudding made from soaked prunes, sugar, and beaten egg whites, served with sweetened whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Prune Pudding, No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prunes

  1. Soak the prunes overnight, sweetening them to taste.

  2. In the morning, stew the prunes until soft and remove the pits.

  3. Cut the prunes into small pieces.

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the egg whites until frothy.

  2. Gradually stir the beaten egg whites into the cold prunes, beating continuously.

  3. Bake immediately for about 25 minutes.

  4. Stir the prunes once while baking.

Serve

  1. Once cooled, serve with sweetened whipped cream.

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

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

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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, moisture and fruity flavour of the pudding.
Egg whites
Beaten into foam, they trap air and give the pudding its light, risen structure as it sets.
Sugar
Sweetens the prunes, balancing their tartness.

The step that matters

Folding the beaten whites into the prunes. Beaten egg whites hold air in a fragile foam. Stirring them in gradually and baking right away keeps the bubbles intact, so the pudding rises and stays light instead of deflating.

“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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