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Dessert

Prune Whip

A baked dessert made with whipped egg whites, sugar, prunes, figs, and pecans.

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

Why it works: Fig and pecans work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 93 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Prune Whip

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the mixture

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Add the sugar and mix well.

  3. Boil the prunes and figs.

  4. Finely chop the boiled prunes and figs.

  5. Add the chopped prunes and figs to the mixture.

  6. Mix in the chopped pecans.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pudding dish.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for about 20 minutes until light brown.

  3. Let cool and serve with rich 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. Fig + pecanstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Sugar + figtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 recipes

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

  3. Egg + pecanstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,280 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Sugar + pecanstop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,962 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they give the prune whip its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Stabilises the whipped whites and adds sweetness to the fruit mixture.
Prunes
Provide the main fruit flavour and body, sweetening the mixture with their natural sugars.
Figs
Add fruity body and moisture to the mixture alongside the prunes.
Pecans
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft whip.

The step that matters

Folding in the fruit after whipping the egg whites. Whipped egg whites hold air through a foam of proteins and sugar. Stirring in heavy chopped fruit too vigorously knocks out that air, so the whip bakes up dense instead of light.

Swap the pecans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Pecansthe original
  4. Pistachiofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, fig. 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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