Name: Prune Souffle
Ingredients: 1 pound French prunes; whites of 8 eggs; sugar to taste; whipped cream for serving

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 Souffle

Ingredients

1 pound French prunes
whites of 8 eggs
sugar to taste
whipped cream for serving

Directions

Prepare the prunes

Stew and chop the prunes finely.
Strain off the juice and set it aside for another use.
Sweeten the chopped prunes to taste.

Bake and serve

Bake the chopped prunes and egg whites together until set.
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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

French prunes: Provide the main flavour and body of the soufflé base.
Egg whites: Whisked egg whites trap air and set on baking, giving the soufflé its lift and structure.
Sugar: Sweetens the prune base and balances its tartness.

The step that matters

Baking the prunes and egg whites together until set. Egg whites must be whipped to hold air before they are folded into the prune base; the air expands in the oven and then the proteins set. Underbaking leaves the soufflé collapsed and wet, while overbaking makes it dry and rubbery.

“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.