Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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 Mould
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the prunes
Split the prunes and remove the stones.
Cook
In a saucepan, combine prunes, water, sugar, lemon juice, and finely grated lemon rind.
Simmer for 20 to 25 minutes.
Dissolve the gelatine in 1 tablespoon of water and mix it into the saucepan.
Add a few drops of cochineal and pour the mixture into a wet mould.
Set
Refrigerate until set, about 1 hour.
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.
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon 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, sweetness and body of the mould.
- Leaf gelatine
- Sets the cooked fruit liquid into a firm, sliceable mould when chilled.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the prunes and lemon.
- Lemon
- Adds acidity and bright aroma that lift the sweet prune flavour.
The step that matters
Dissolve the gelatine fully before mixing it in. Gelatine only sets properly when completely dissolved and evenly distributed. Undissolved granules or lumps leave weak, patchy spots in the mould, so it should be fully melted before it goes into the hot mixture.
“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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