Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Prune 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 prunes
Drain the juice from the stewed prunes, stone them, and chop finely.
Make the meringue
Beat the egg whites until stiff.
Gradually add the sugar while continuing to beat the egg whites.
Slowly incorporate the chopped prunes into the mixture and beat thoroughly.
Bake and serve
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.
Serve cold with custard made from the egg yolks.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Stewed prunes
- Provide the fruit flavour and body that the pudding is built around.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiffness, they create the airy structure that holds the pudding together.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the mixture and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites hold air only when whipped to stiff peaks with no yolk contamination. Adding sugar gradually keeps the foam stable, and folding the prunes in gently preserves the air needed for a light texture after baking.
“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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