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Dessert

Prune Pudding

A baked pudding made with prunes, currants, lemon, orange, butter, sugar, eggs, spices, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Prune Pudding

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Prune Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the mixture

  1. Peel and grate the prunes raw.

  2. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Beat the eggs until light and fluffy, then add to the butter and sugar along with all other ingredients. Mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a pudding dish and fill it no more than two-thirds full with the mixture.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  3. Serve hot or cold with a 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.

  1. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set into a light, tender pudding when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the pudding.
Prunes
Provide moisture, body and a deep fruity sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps brown its surface during baking.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit flavour throughout.

The step that matters

Filling the dish no more than two-thirds full. The mixture rises and expands in the oven as the eggs set, so overfilling can cause it to spill over and bake unevenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, lemon, sugar, orange, butter, brandy, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, lemon, sugar, orange, butter, brandy, cinnamon. 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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