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Dessert

Cream Prune Pie

A pie filled with a puree of stewed prunes, sweet cream, and eggs, topped with a sweetened whipped egg white mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Cream Prune Pie

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 filling

  1. Wash the prunes.

  2. Stew the prunes until soft.

  3. Rub the stewed prunes through a colander.

  4. In a bowl, combine the prune puree, sweet cream, beaten egg yolks, and sugar.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  6. Add pineapple flavoring to the mixture.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

  2. Bake the pie at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  3. Beat the egg whites with 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  4. Add pineapple flavoring to the whipped egg whites.

  5. Spread the topping over the pie.

  6. Bake until golden.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + pineappletop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,574 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Cream and egg 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 flavor and body of the filling when stewed and pureed.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, creamy texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard-like filling as they set during baking.
Egg whites
Whipped into a light meringue topping that bakes to golden.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilize the beaten egg white topping.

The step that matters

Bake the pie at 350°F (175°C) until set. Egg yolks set through gentle heat, and overbaking can make the custard weep or turn grainy, while underbaking leaves the filling runny.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

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