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Dessert

Prune Pudding

A baked pudding made with sweet milk, corn starch, eggs, butter, nutmeg, and stewed prunes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Prune Pudding

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Prune Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. Heat sweet milk in a saucepan until boiling.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix corn starch with a little cold milk until smooth.

  3. Gradually stir the corn starch mixture into the boiling milk.

  4. Add sugar, beaten eggs, butter, and nutmeg; mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish and add the stewed prunes.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

  3. Serve warm, with cream if desired.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its body and structure.
Corn starch
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth custard that holds its shape when cooled.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, carrying the thickener and eggs.
Stewed prunes
Add sweetness, moisture, and a deep fruity flavour throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Gradually stir the corn starch mixture into the boiling milk. Adding the starch slowly while stirring keeps it dispersed so it thickens evenly instead of forming lumps. Corn starch needs heat to swell and thicken, so the milk should be kept boiling.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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