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Dessert

Prune Pudding

A sweet pudding made with prunes, gelatin, butter, flour, spices, and eggs, set in a mold and topped with beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Prune Pudding

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Prune Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the prunes

  1. Wash a bowlful of prunes and boil them in a little water and sugar for an hour.

  2. Strain off the juice.

  3. Beat the prunes, removing the stones.

Set the pudding

  1. Soak half a package of gelatin in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Add the gelatin to the lukewarm juice.

  3. Heat gently until it just begins to boil.

  4. Place the prunes in a mold.

  5. Pour the syrup over them.

  6. Chill until firm.

Serve

  1. Unmold and top with beaten egg whites and sugar.

  2. Serve with cream.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Prunes
Provide the main flavor, sweetness and soft texture of the pudding.
Gelatin
Sets the juice into a firm, sliceable jelly around the prunes.
Eggs
Beaten whites form a light foam that tops the set pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the prunes and the egg white topping.

The step that matters

Heat the gelatin gently. Gelatin dissolves fully with gentle heat, and vigorous or prolonged boiling weakens its setting power, so the pudding may stay soft. Stop heating as soon as it just begins to boil.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, meat, egg, cinnamon, clove, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicethe original
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, meat, egg, cinnamon, clove, flour. 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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