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Dessert

Prune Shape

A gelatin dessert made with stewed prunes, sugar, ratafia, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 519 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Prune Shape

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prunes

  1. Stew the prunes with ¼ cup sugar until tender.

  2. Strain the liquid and remove the stones from the prunes.

Make the jelly

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in 1 pint of cold water.

  2. Mix in ½ pint of boiling water with the prune juice.

  3. Add 1 cup sugar and a few drops of ratafia to the mixture.

Set and serve

  1. Arrange the prunes in a mold and pour the liquid over them.

  2. Let it stand until completely cold.

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. Fig + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Fig + sugartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Fig + gelatintop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together38 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Prunes
Provide the main flavour and softened fruit pieces that set within the jelly.
Gelatin
Sets the liquid into a firm, wobbly jelly as it cools.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and balances the tartness of the prunes.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatin in cold water. Gelatin must be fully dissolved before the hot liquid is added; undissolved granules leave gritty specks and uneven setting. Gelatin sets only as it cools, so the mixture must be left to stand until completely cold.

“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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