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Dessert

Prune Souffle

A baked souffle made with prunes, raisins, currants, molasses, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Prune Souffle

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. Boil prunes in a small quantity of water until tender.

  2. When cool, pit and chop the prunes.

Make the souffle

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, then gradually add the sugar.

  2. Fold in the chopped prunes a small amount at a time, beating well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 25 minutes.

  2. 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Add sweetness, moisture and a dense, fruity flavour to the souffle base.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they trap air and give the souffle its light structure and rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and stabilises the whipped egg white foam.

The step that matters

Fold in the prunes gently. Adding the chopped prunes a little at a time keeps the air bubbles in the whipped egg whites intact. Overmixing deflates the foam, so the souffle bakes flatter and denser instead of rising.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, cinnamon, flour, molasses, milk):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, cinnamon, flour, molasses, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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