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Dessert

Prune Bars

A sweet baked bar made with eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, dried prunes, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nuts are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,180 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Prune Bars

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the fruit and batter

  1. Wash and soak the prunes for 2 to 3 hours, then dry and cut them into small pieces.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and add the sugar.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and then add the dry ingredients.

  4. Fold in the nuts and prunes.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a shallow pan at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

  2. Remove from the pan and cut into 1x3-inch bars.

  3. Roll in powdered sugar or frost with chocolate frosting.

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. Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + nutstop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,228 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten whites trap air, giving the bars lift and a light structure.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten framework that holds the bars together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the batter rise and become tender.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the bars soft and moist.
Dried prunes
Add sweetness, moisture and a chewy texture.
Chopped nuts
Add crunch and a toasty flavour against the soft crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the nuts and prunes. Whipped egg whites hold air that gives the bars their lift. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air in the batter so the bars do not turn dense.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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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