Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Prune Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the prunes
Cook the prunes until very tender, then remove the stones and mash them with a spoon.
Make the pudding
Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add the sugar and mashed prunes.
Pour the mixture into a pudding dish and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until lightly browned, about 5 minutes.
Cool and serve
Remove from the oven, cool in the refrigerator, and serve with cream.
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.
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- French prunes
- Provide the main fruit flavor and a soft, moist body to the pudding.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiffness, they give the pudding its light, airy structure.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilize the whipped egg whites.
The step that matters
Beat the egg whites until stiff. Whipped egg whites trap air and set the pudding's airy structure. Under-whipped whites will not hold their volume, and the pudding may turn out dense and flat in the oven.
“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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