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Dessert

Prune Whip

A baked dessert of prunes, egg whites, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Prune Whip

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 Whip

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Remove the pits from the prunes.

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gently fold in the sugar and prunes.

Bake, chill and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking pan placed in a larger pan of hot water.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes.

  3. Let it cool in the water bath, then refrigerate until very cold.

  4. 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.

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. 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 main fruit flavor, sweetness and moisture that give the whip its body.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the dessert its light, airy structure as it sets.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and stabilizes the beaten egg white foam.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the sugar and prunes. Egg white foam is held up by trapped air bubbles. Vigorous or prolonged stirring pops those bubbles and deflates the foam, so the whip will bake flat and dense instead of light.

“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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