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Dessert

Prune Pudding

A steamed fruit pudding made with raisins and prunes, topped with a biscuit crust and served warm with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Prune Pudding

Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Prune Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fruit

  1. Steam the raisins and prunes together until both are tender.

  2. Sweeten the mixture to taste.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the fruit with a rich biscuit crust.

  2. Bake until the crust is golden brown.

  3. Serve warm with cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + biscuittop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Biscuit + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,874 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness to the fruit filling.
Prunes
Provide soft body and concentrated sweetness that forms the base of the pudding.
Biscuit crust
Forms a rich, golden topping that browns in the oven and contrasts with the soft fruit.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Raspberryfits about as well

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