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Dessert

Prune Dessert

A baked dessert made from stewed prunes, egg whites, powdered sugar, and served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 Dessert

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the prunes

  1. Stew prunes until soft, then chop them finely.

Make the mixture

  1. Beat egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Fold in powdered sugar and chopped prunes.

  3. Pour mixture into a mold and place in a pan of hot water.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve immediately with 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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Egg + sugartop 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 flavour and moisture, and body once softened and chopped.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the dessert its light, risen structure.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and dissolves easily into the whipped whites.

The step that matters

Beat egg whites to stiff peaks. Under-beaten whites stay runny and won't hold air, so the dessert will not rise. Over-beaten whites turn grainy and dry and collapse in the oven. Fold gently so the air is kept.

“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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