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Dessert

Prune Blanc Mange

A chilled prune jam made with cornstarch, sugar, lemon juice, and prune water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Prune Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jam

  1. Mix cornstarch and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Add prune water and cook until the mixture no longer tastes of raw starch.

  3. Stir in lemon juice and the cut prunes.

Set

  1. Pour the mixture into a moistened mold and chill until set.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid into a set, spoonable jam as it cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the prunes.
Prunes
Provide the main flavor and body of the jam.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, deep prune flavor.

The step that matters

Cook until the starch no longer tastes raw. Cornstarch must be heated fully to swell and thicken properly; undercooked starch leaves a raw, floury taste and a weaker set.

“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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