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 ↓
Pkune 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 base
Remove stones from the prunes and mash them.
In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with sugar and vanilla extract.
Whip and fold
In another bowl, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff peaks form.
Combine the mashed prunes with the egg yolk mixture.
Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the prune mixture.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 10 to 15 minutes.
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.
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that makes the soufflé rise and become light.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the base and add richness and structure as they set in the oven.
- Stewed prunes
- Provide the main flavour and moisture, giving the soufflé its body and sweetness.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the base and helps stabilise the yolk mixture.
The step that matters
Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the prune mixture. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whipped whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the soufflé rise poorly and turn 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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