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Dessert

Prune Souffle

A light dessert made from soaked prunes folded into stiffened egg whites and cooked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Prune Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prunes

  1. Soak the prunes overnight.

  2. Cook the prunes.

  3. Remove the outer skin and stones, then rub through a colander.

Make the soufflé

  1. Beat the egg whites until very stiff.

  2. Add the sugar to the egg whites and beat well.

  3. Mix in the prunes and flavor with vanilla.

  4. Place the mixture in a double boiler and cook for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve 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.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  3. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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, sweetness and fruity flavor of the soufflé.
Eggs
Whites are beaten to create the airy foam that gives the soufflé its lift and structure.
Granulated sugar
Stabilizes the beaten egg whites and adds sweetness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until very stiff. Egg whites trap air when whipped to stiff peaks, and that foam provides the lift and light texture of the soufflé. If they are under-beaten, the foam collapses and the soufflé turns dense.

“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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