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Dessert

Prune Pyramid

A dessert of prunes coated in pancake batter, fried, and arranged in a pyramid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Prune Pyramid

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prunes

  1. Cook prunes until half done.

  2. Remove pits and replace with blanched almonds.

Batter and fry

  1. Dip each prune in pancake batter, ensuring they are well coated.

  2. Fry in hot butter until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Arrange on a plate in a pyramid shape and sprinkle with sugar.

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. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Prunes
Provide the soft, sweet fruit filling that is the centerpiece of each bite.
Blanched almonds
Add a firm, nutty filling that contrasts with the soft prune.
Pancake batter
Forms a coating that crisps and browns when fried, sealing in the fruit.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the batter.

The step that matters

Frying in hot butter until golden brown. If the butter is not hot enough, the batter absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of crisping. Too much heat browns the outside before the batter sets, so the coating burns while the inside stays cold.

“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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