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Dessert

Prune Whip

A dessert of stewed prunes with sugar, folded into stiff egg whites and served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Prune Whip

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Prune Whip

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prunes

  1. Soak the prunes well before cooking and pit them.

  2. Stew the prunes with sugar until rich and the skins are soft.

  3. If the skins are not soft, strain the mixture through a colander.

  4. Let the prunes cool.

Finish and serve

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff and stir them into the cooled prunes.

  2. Serve with whipped cream.

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.

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.

  1. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Prunes
Provide the main flavour and body, becoming a thick purée when stewed and strained.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they lighten the mixture and give the whip its airy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the stewed prunes and balances their tartness.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten to a stable foam and folded in gently while the prunes are cool. Overbeating makes them grainy and dry, while warm prunes can deflate the foam and make the whip heavy.

“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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