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Dessert

Prune Pudding

A baked pudding made with milk, eggs, cornstarch, sugar, butter, nutmeg, and stewed prunes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Prune Pudding

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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.

Make the custard

  1. Heat sweet milk to boiling point.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix cold milk with cornstarch until smooth.

  3. Gradually stir the cold milk mixture into the boiling milk.

  4. Add sugar, beaten eggs, butter, and nutmeg, and stir well.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

  2. Add the stewed prunes to the mixture.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the oven.

  4. Serve with or without sauce; cream enhances the flavor.

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.

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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs
Bind the pudding and help it set into a soft, custard-like texture when heated.
Cornstarch
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth, sliceable custard as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds richness and body.
Stewed prunes
Add sweetness, fruity flavor and moisture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Gradually stir the cold milk mixture into the boiling milk. Cornstarch clumps if it meets hot liquid without being dispersed in cold liquid first. Adding the slurry slowly while stirring keeps it smooth and lets it thicken evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

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