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Dessert

Prune Whip

A baked dessert made from stewed prunes, whipped egg whites, powdered sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 the prunes

  1. Stew the prunes until soft and the liquid has boiled away.

  2. Remove the pits and chop the prunes finely.

Whip and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until frothy.

  2. Add the powdered sugar, salt, and chopped prunes, stirring to combine.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a pudding dish.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for a few minutes until browned.

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

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the dish its light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the foam, adding sweetness and helping it hold its shape.
Prunes
Add concentrated sweetness, a deep fruity flavor, and moisture to the whip.

The step that matters

Stirring the prunes into the whipped whites. Egg white foam traps air in thin films. Stirring too vigorously knocks that air out, so the whip bakes flat and dense instead of light and puffed.

“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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