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Dessert

Prairie Plum Pudding

A baked pudding made with raisins, citron, sponge cake or Boston crackers, milk, eggs, and a sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Prairie Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dish

  1. Stew raisins and citron together.

  2. Grease a dish with butter.

Layer and custard

  1. Layer sponge cake or buttered Boston crackers in the dish.

  2. Add a layer of the stewed fruit.

  3. Repeat layers until all ingredients are used.

  4. Finish with cake or bread.

  5. Mix milk, egg yolks, and sugar to taste.

  6. Pour the mixture over the layered dish.

Bake and top

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until a knife inserted comes out clean.

  2. Beat egg whites and mix with powdered sugar.

  3. Spread the frosting over the pudding.

  4. Brown the frosting in the oven.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Boil sugar and water.

  2. Add butter and cornstarch mixed with a little cold milk.

  3. Boil for 5 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Stir in the beaten egg white and vanilla.

  6. Serve with sauce.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Raisin + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together782 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

Egg yolks
Enriches the milk custard, helping it set into a soft, tender layer.
Egg whites
Whipped with powdered sugar to form a light topping that browns in the oven.
Milk
Forms the liquid custard that soaks into the layers and sets during baking.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture between the layers.
Sponge cake or boston crackers
Absorb the custard and give the pudding its soft, layered structure.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce as it boils, giving it body.

The step that matters

Bake until a knife comes out clean. Egg custard sets through gentle heat; underbaking leaves it runny in the middle, while overbaking makes the eggs curdle and turn grainy and tough.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, egg, sugar, sauce, vanilla):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, egg, sugar, sauce, vanilla. 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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