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Dessert

Prune Whip

A baked dessert of whipped prunes folded into stiff egg whites, topped with a soft custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the egg whites until very stiff.

Make the prune whip

  1. Gradually add the chopped prunes to the beaten egg whites.

  2. Fold in the sugar and cream of tartar gently.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish set in a water bath.

  4. Bake for 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Meanwhile, make a soft custard with the egg yolks.

  2. Serve the prune whip topped with the custard.

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. Egg + sugartop 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

Egg whites
Beaten into a stiff foam that gives the whip its light, airy structure.
Prunes
Provide the main fruit flavour and sweetness, and body to the whip.
Sugar
Sweetens the whip and helps stabilise the beaten egg white foam.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the egg whites, helping them whip to a stable, stiff foam.
Egg yolks
Form the soft custard that is served over the prune whip.

The step that matters

Folding in the sugar and cream of tartar gently. Overmixing knocks air out of the stiff egg white foam, so the whip bakes up flat and dense instead of light and airy.

“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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