Skip to main content
Dessert

Gateau De Prunes

A French cake made of stewed prunes in syrup, served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Gateau De Prunes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prunes

  1. Stew the prunes in water for 1½ hours.

  2. Remove the prunes from the water and take out the stones using a skewer.

Make the syrup

  1. In the same water, dissolve the red currant jelly, then add sugar, lemon juice, and gelatine. Simmer the mixture together.

Set and serve

  1. Fill a border mould with the syrup and prunes, then let it cool.

  2. Turn out the mould onto a dish and fill the center with whipped 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.

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. Lemon + red curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + red curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and sugar 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 fruit flavour and soft, moist body once stewed and pitted.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness, tartness and a glossy colour to the syrup.
Gelatine
Sets the syrup so the cake holds its shape when turned out of the mould.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the lemon and currant jelly.
Lemon
Its juice adds acidity that brightens the sweet fruit flavour.

The step that matters

Dissolving and setting the gelatine in the syrup. Gelatine must be fully dissolved and the syrup kept hot enough to pour, then cooled just until it thickens. If it sets before filling the mould, the mixture stays lumpy; if it stays too thin, the cake will not hold its shape when turned out.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

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

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipes