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Dessert

Prune Pie

A fruit pie made with cooked prunes, prune juice, butter, sugar, bread crumbs, and eggs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Prune Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Line a pie crust with cooked and pitted prunes.

  2. Add prune juice to moisten the prunes.

  3. In a bowl, cream together butter, sugar, and bread crumbs. Mix in the beaten egg yolks.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture over the prunes.

  2. Top with a second pie crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 fruit flavor and a moist, soft filling.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard-like filling and help it set while baking.
Egg whites
Folded in for lightness, adding air that helps the filling puff and set.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the filling.
Bread crumbs
Soak up liquid and help thicken the filling so it holds its shape.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Egg whites hold air only when beaten; vigorous stirring deflates them, leaving a dense filling that rises less and sets unevenly.

“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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