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Dessert

Prune Souffle

A baked dessert made from soaked prunes, sugar, and folded stiff egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the prunes

  1. Soak the prunes in cold water to cover for 6 hours.

  2. Stew the prunes until tender, then drain and chop finely.

  3. Add the sugar to the prunes and beat to a paste.

Make and bake the soufflé

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold into the prune paste.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately 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.

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. Egg + sugartop 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 bulk and sweet, fruity flavour of the soufflé base.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they trap air that lifts and gives the soufflé its structure.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the base and helps stabilise the beaten egg whites.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the prune paste. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whipped whites intact. Stirring or deflating them makes the soufflé heavy and prevents it from rising well 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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