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Dessert

Prune Shape

A gelatin set dessert of prunes flavored with lemon and sweetened with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Prune Shape

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prunes

  1. Wash the prunes in cold water and place them in a saucepan with the lemon rind.

  2. Cover with cold water, bring to a boil, then simmer gently for 1 hour.

  3. Remove the prunes from the heat and take out the stones.

Make the gelatine syrup

  1. Combine the syrup, sugar, gelatin, lemon juice, and cochineal in a pan.

  2. Heat the mixture for 8–10 minutes until the gelatin is melted, stirring occasionally.

Set and serve

  1. Place the prunes in a mould.

  2. Strain the syrup over the prunes.

  3. Refrigerate until set.

  4. Turn out onto a glass dish.

  5. Serve with whipped cream or custard.

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

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

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 body, sweetness and flavour of the dessert.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid syrup into a firm, sliceable jelly as it cools.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet prune flavour.
Lump sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the lemon.
Cochineal
Gives the jelly its red colour.

The step that matters

Melt the gelatine fully before setting. Undissolved gelatine granules will not set and leave the jelly grainy or weak. Keep the heat gentle, since boiling can weaken gelatine's setting power and give a softer result.

“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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