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Dessert

Prune or Date Whip

A whipped dessert made from prunes or dates, sugar, egg whites, and lemon juice, baked and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Prune or Date Whip

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pick over and wash the prunes or dates, then soak them in cold water.

  2. Cook the prunes or dates in the same water until soft; remove the stones and rub through a strainer.

  3. Add sugar and cook for five minutes until the consistency is like marmalade.

Make the whip and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and gradually add the cooled fruit mixture and lemon juice.

  2. Heap the mixture lightly in a buttered dish and bake for twenty minutes at 300°F (150°C).

  3. Serve cold with thin custard or 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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Dates + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together985 recipes

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

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Dates + lemontop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Egg whites
Beaten into stiff foam that traps air and gives the whip its light, airy structure.
Prunes or dates
Cooked and puréed to supply the fruit body, flavour and moisture of the whip.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit purée and thickens it to a marmalade-like consistency.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the fruit flavour and helps stabilise the beaten egg whites.

The step that matters

Add the cooled fruit mixture gradually to the stiff egg whites. Folding the fruit in slowly, and only once it has cooled, keeps the whites from deflating. Hot or rapidly added fruit loosens the foam and the whip loses its lightness.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, lemon):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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