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Prune Whip

A baked dessert of soaked prunes folded into stiff egg whites, sweetened with sugar and topped with whipped cream.

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

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 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. Soak the prunes overnight.

  2. Boil the prunes until almost dry, then add sugar to make them sweet.

Make the meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites until very stiff.

  2. Once the prunes are cool, beat them into the egg whites.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a dish and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 40 minutes.

  4. Let it cool and cover with whipped cream before serving.

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. 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. 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 body, moisture and sweet fruit flavour of the dish.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they give the dish its light, airy structure when baked.
Sugar
Sweetens the prunes and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until very stiff. Stiff egg whites trap air that expands in the oven and sets the structure. Under-whipped whites produce a dense, collapsed result, and the foam can also deflate if the prunes are folded in roughly.

“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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