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Dessert

Prune Whip

A baked dessert made from soaked prunes, sugar, beaten egg whites, lemon juice, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Prune Whip

Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Prune 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 prunes

  1. Wash the prunes and soak them overnight.

  2. Cook the prunes in the soaking water until soft, then remove the stones.

  3. Press the prunes through a potato masher.

  4. Add the sugar and cook for 5 minutes.

Make the whip

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Gently fold in the lemon juice and prune pulp.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a buttered shallow dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 20 minutes.

  2. Serve with cream or a custard made from the egg yolks.

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. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

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

Prunes
Provide the main flavour and pulp that gives the whip its body and sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the prune pulp cook into a thick, smooth base.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks to lighten the mixture and give it an airy, set structure.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold stiff peaks before folding, because the air they trap is what makes the whip light. Under-whipped or deflated whites produce a dense, flat result.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter. 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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