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Dessert

Prune Whip

A steamed dessert made from prunes, sugar, egg whites, and 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 mixture

  1. Cook the prunes well and mash them using a potato masher.

  2. Add the sugar to the mashed prunes and fold in the beaten egg whites.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the mixture in a pan and set it in a larger pan filled with water.

  2. Place over a gas flame on the stove and steam for 2 hours, keeping the water boiling rapidly.

  3. Serve in the same pan 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 body, moisture, and fruity flavour of the whip.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tart flavour of the prunes.
Egg whites
Set during steaming to give the whip its light, airy structure.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling rapidly. Steady, vigorous steam keeps the outer pan at a constant temperature so the egg whites set gently and cook through over the full two hours. If the water stops boiling, the mixture cooks unevenly and may stay loose.

“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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