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Dessert

Prune Batter

A baked dessert of prunes covered in a wheatmeal batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Batter

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the milk, wheatmeal, and egg to make a batter.

  2. Melt the butter and stir it into the batter.

Bake

  1. Place the prunes in a small pie dish and pour the batter over them.

  2. Bake until the top is a nice brown color.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Plum + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together406 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Plum + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together710 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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

Wheatmeal
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Egg
Sets the batter as it bakes and adds richness and structure.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and richer flavour.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter a moist, pourable consistency.
Plums
Add sweetness and moisture that soak into the batter as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake until the top is a nice brown color. Browning comes from Maillard reactions and caramelisation at the surface. Stopping too early leaves the custard-like batter underset, while baking too long can dry it out.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Plumthe original

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