Name: Prune Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup raisins; 1 cup prunes; 1/4 cup sugar; lemon juice (to taste); rich biscuit dough (for topping); cream sauce (for serving)

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Prune Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fruit

Stew the raisins and prunes in a pot until tender.
Place the stewed fruit in a baking dish.
Sprinkle with lemon juice and sugar.

Top and bake

Cover the fruit with rich biscuit dough.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the dough is golden.

Serve

Serve hot with cream sauce.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Raisin + biscuittop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Lemon + biscuittop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together697 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins: Add sweetness and chewy texture as they soften during stewing.
Prunes: Add moisture, sweetness and a soft, dense texture to the filling.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the fruit.
Rich biscuit dough: Forms a golden, cooked crust over the fruit as it bakes.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar, biscuit, cream, sauce):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Coconutfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, biscuit, cream, sauce. 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.