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Dessert

Prune Souffle

A baked dessert of stewed prunes, sugar, cream of tartar, eggs, and whipped egg whites.

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 Souffle

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 prune base

  1. Stew the prunes until soft, then remove the stones.

  2. Rub the prunes through a sieve to measure 4 cups.

  3. In a bowl, mix the prunes with sugar and cream of tartar.

  4. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pan and place it in a larger pan filled with hot water.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  4. Serve 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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg 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 the bulk of the soufflé base.
Eggs
Whipped whites give the soufflé its lift and light structure; yolks enrich the base.
Sugar
Sweetens the prune base and adds body to the mixture.
Cream of tartar
Stabilises the egg whites so they whip to a firmer, more stable foam.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture. Under-whipped whites will not hold air and the soufflé will not rise. Over-mixing when folding knocks out the air, so fold gently until just combined.

“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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