Skip to main content
Dessert

Prune Pudding

A dessert made from stewed prunes mixed with custard and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Prune Pudding

Why it works: Plum and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 211 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Prune Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prunes

  1. Wash the prunes, remove the stones, and soak them in 2 cups of water overnight.

  2. Stew the prunes gently in the soaking water, adding more if needed, until tender.

  3. Mash the prunes with a fork or wooden spoon and let them cool.

  4. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and mix with the cooled mashed prunes.

Make the custard

  1. In a separate bowl, heat the milk with cornflour and the egg yolks, adding sugar and almond essence to taste.

  2. Let the custard cool.

Assemble and serve

  1. Heap the prunes on a glass dish.

  2. Pour the custard around the prunes and serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Plum + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Plum + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together406 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Prunes or french plums
Stewed and mashed, they provide the bulk, moisture and fruity flavour of the pudding.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard as they set on heating, and whipped whites lighten the prune mixture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which sets into a soft, creamy texture.
Cornflour
Starch thickens the hot milk, giving the custard body and helping it hold its shape.

The step that matters

Heating the custard with the egg yolks. Egg yolk proteins set when heated and can curdle if the custard gets too hot or boils. Gentle heat, with the cornflour's starch thickening the milk, keeps it smooth and pourable.

Swap the plum

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, almond, egg, milk. 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.

More prune pudding recipes

Norwegian 7Steamed 5 See all 210 →

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes