Skip to main content
Dessert

Molded Prunes

A chilled gelatin dessert made from prunes, sugar, lemon, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and gelatin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Molded Prunes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the prunes in water and sugar until soft.

  2. Remove the stones and crack the kernels.

Make the mold

  1. Add the lemon juice, rind, and dissolved gelatin in a little water. Stir until thoroughly mixed.

  2. Pour into a mold and set in a cool place until ready to serve.

Serve

  1. To serve, turn the mold upside down and pour over whipped cream.

  2. Decorate with a few stuffed prunes.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Gelatin + lemontop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,215 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 body, sweetness and fruity flavour of the dish.
Gelatin
Sets the cooked prune mixture so it holds its shape when unmolded.
Sugar
Sweetens the prunes and adds body to the cooking liquid.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sweetness of the prunes.

The step that matters

Dissolving and mixing the gelatin. Gelatin must be fully dissolved and evenly stirred into the warm fruit mixture, otherwise it sets unevenly or leaves soft and firm patches. Cooling the mixture to a cool place lets it set firmly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, gelatin. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes