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Dessert

Prune Pudding

A dessert made from stewed prunes mixed with whipped egg whites and served with vanilla‑flavored whipped 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 vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Prune Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prunes

  1. Stew the prunes with the sugar until soft.

  2. Let the prunes cool, then remove the stones and chop them finely.

Make the pudding

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Mix the chopped prunes with the whipped egg whites.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold and boil for 20 minutes.

Cool and serve

  1. Let it cool completely before serving with whipped cream flavored with vanilla.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 dark fruity flavor of the pudding.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the pudding a light, set structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the prunes and helps soften them during stewing.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a cool, creamy contrast to the served pudding.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma to the whipped cream served alongside the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding the prunes into the whipped egg whites. Egg white foam is full of trapped air, and overmixing or stirring vigorously deflates it, leaving a dense pudding instead of a light one.

“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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