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Dessert

Prune Whip

A baked dessert made from prunes, sugar, egg whites, lemon juice, and butter.

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

Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Prune Whip

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the prunes

  1. Pick over and wash the prunes, then soak them in cold water to cover for several hours.

  2. Cook the prunes in the same water until soft, then remove the stones.

  3. Rub the prunes through a strainer and add the sugar; cook for 5 minutes until the mixture is marmalade-like.

Make the whip and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the cooled prune mixture and the lemon juice.

  2. Pile the mixture lightly in a buttered pudding dish.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 5 minutes and serve cold with boiled 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. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 fruit flavour, natural sweetness and the body of the whip.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they give the whip its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the prune pulp and helps it cook into a thick, spreadable mixture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet prune flavour and helps stabilise the foam.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to firm peaks before the cooled prune mixture is folded in. Under-whipped whites collapse and make the whip dense, while the foam holds air that gives it lightness.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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