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Dessert

Grenade of Plums

A dessert of plums baked in a batter with cream and egg yolks, topped with sugar.

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

Grenade of Plums

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Cut fresh plums in half and remove the stones.

  2. Strew sugar over the plums.

Make the cream mixture

  1. Beat together ½ pint of cream and the yolks of 8 eggs.

  2. Mix the cream and egg yolk mixture with the plums.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the fruit mixture on top of plain fritters.

  2. Cover the fritters with more batter and sprinkle sugar on top.

  3. Bake until golden.

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

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

  3. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

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

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Plum + creamtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together369 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Fresh plums
Provide the fruit filling and tartness that contrasts with the sweet batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, on top, helps the surface brown and caramelise in the oven.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the filling, softening it as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Enrich and bind the cream mixture, helping it set to a custard-like texture.
Plain fritters batter
Forms the base and top layers that cook into a light, golden casing around the filling.

The step that matters

Covering with batter and baking until golden. The top layer must be fully covered so the custardy filling stays moist, and baking should stop once golden, since overbaking dries the eggs and makes them curdle or toughen.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, 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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