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Dessert

Prune Souffle

A baked dessert of soaked prunes folded with stiffened egg whites and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. 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 prunes

  1. Soak the prunes overnight.

  2. Boil the prunes gently until tender.

  3. Remove the stones and chop the prunes finely.

  4. Sweeten the chopped prunes.

Make and bake the soufflé

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Gently fold in the powdered sugar and prunes.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Prunes
Provide the fruit base and sweetness, and moisture that flavours the soufflé.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the soufflé its light, risen structure.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the folded mixture, adding sweetness without grittiness.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the powdered sugar and prunes. Folding preserves the air trapped in the whipped egg whites. Stirring or deflating the foam heavily makes the soufflé heavy and less able to rise in the oven.

“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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