Why it works: Sugar and cranberry work together. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Prune Tart
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Scald the prunes, remove the stones, and break them apart.
Combine the prunes, sugar, and cranberry juice in a saucepan.
Simmer the mixture until thickened, then let it cool.
Bake and serve
Pour the filling into the pie crust and bake until golden.
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.
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Sugar + cranberrytop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together374 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 flavour and body that thickens into the filling.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the prunes.
- Cranberry juice
- Adds liquid and tartness that moistens the prunes as they simmer.
- Pie crust
- Forms the base that holds the filling while it bakes.
The step that matters
Simmer until thickened. The filling must reduce enough to set once cooled; undercooked filling stays runny and can make the crust soggy after baking.
“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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