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Dessert

Prune Whip

A light dessert made from mashed prunes, egg whites, sugar, and vanilla, baked until set.

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 vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. 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).

Make and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the mashed prunes, beaten egg whites, cream of tartar, sugar, and vanilla.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for about 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with 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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Prunes
Provide the main body, sweetness, and fruity flavour of the whip.
Egg whites
Whipped, they trap air and set on baking to give the whip its light structure.
Cream of tartar
Stabilises the beaten egg whites so their foam holds together longer.
Sugar
Sweetens the whip and helps stabilise the foam of the beaten whites.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for about 10 minutes.. Egg white foam sets quickly with heat but can collapse or turn rubbery if overbaked, so timing matters for a light texture.

“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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