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Prune Pudding

A baked pudding made from stewed prunes, port wine, and sugar wrapped in puff pastry.

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

Why it works: Port wine and wine work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 128 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Prune Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Stew prunes with port wine, water, and brown sugar until soft.

  2. Break the stones and add the kernels to the fruit.

  3. Spread the mixture over a sheet of puff pastry and wet the edges.

Shape and cook

  1. Roll it into a bolster shape and tie it firmly in a buttered and floured cloth.

  2. Boil for 2 to 3 hours.

  3. Serve with sweet wine sauce.

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. Port wine + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 filling, becoming soft and sweet as they stew in the wine and sugar.
Puff paste
Forms the outer pastry wrapper that encloses the fruit filling during boiling.
Port wine
Adds depth and aroma to the stewed prunes while softening the fruit.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses-like flavour to the stewed prunes.

The step that matters

Tie the pudding firmly in the cloth. A loose tie lets water seep into the pastry during the long boil, making the pudding soggy and possibly splitting the wrapper. Firm wrapping keeps the filling enclosed and holds its shape.

“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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