Skip to main content
Dessert

Prune Souffle

A baked souffle made with stewed prunes, egg whites, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Souffle

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 the juice is cooked away.

  2. Let the prunes cool, then remove the pits and rub them through a colander.

Make the soufflé

  1. Whip the egg whites until very stiff.

  2. Add the sugar to the egg whites and mix with the prunes.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes.

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.

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 flavour and moisture, and the pulp that gives the soufflé its body.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they trap air and give the soufflé its light, risen structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites until very stiff. Air trapped in the whipped whites is what makes the soufflé rise. Under-whipped whites collapse, and over-whipped whites turn grainy and dry, so the foam needs to be firm but still smooth before folding in the prune pulp.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes