Name: The Dewey Cook Book
Ingredients: one pound of prunes soaked over night; 4 tablespoonfuls sugar; three tablespoonfuls of sugar; one-half pint of thick sweet cream; three eggs; four eggs; four level teaspoonfuls of sugar; four eggs to a stiff froth

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 ↓

The Dewey Cook Book

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prunes

Soak one pound of prunes overnight.
In the morning, cook the prunes until soft, remove the stones, and press through a colander.

Make the whip

Beat the whites of three eggs stiffly.
Add the prunes to the beaten whites.

Bake and serve

Put the mixture in a buttered dish.
Bake for twenty minutes in a moderate oven.
Serve cold with whipped cream.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

178Calories

7 gProtein

11 gFat

14 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Cream	1 tbsp (15ml) heavy	51
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Prune	not in our table	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Young Men's Christian Association (Montpelier, Vt.). Women of the Auxiliary. 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. See the original page.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg 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 fruit body and sweet, dark flavour of the whip.
Egg whites: Whipped to a stiff foam, they give the dish its light, airy structure.
Sugar: Sweetens the whip and helps stabilise the beaten egg white foam.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites stiffly before adding the prunes. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to a stiff foam. Well-beaten whites give the whip its lightness, and if they are under-beaten or deflated, the dish comes out dense.

“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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The Dewey Cook Book