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Dessert

Prune Tart

A tart made with prunes, sugar, water, vinegar or lemon juice, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and raspberry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,101 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Prune Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Scald the prunes and remove the stones.

  2. In a saucepan, combine prunes, water, and sugar; simmer over low heat for 10 minutes.

  3. Pour the mixture into a basin and let it cool slightly.

  4. Add raspberry vinegar or lemon juice to the prunes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a flat dish with puff pastry.

  2. Fill the dish with the prunes.

  3. Cover with more pastry.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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 + raspberrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,101 recipes

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

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 and sweetness that forms the tart's filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the prunes thicken into a spreadable filling as they simmer.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, golden crust that encloses the filling.
Raspberry vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the prunes.

The step that matters

Let the prunes cool slightly before filling the pastry. Hot filling melts the butter in puff pastry before it can bake, making the crust greasy and soggy instead of flaky. Cooling it slightly keeps the layers intact.

“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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