Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Prune Souffle
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 the soufflé
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Beat the egg whites until foamy, then add the cream of tartar and continue beating until stiff peaks form.
Gradually beat in the powdered sugar.
Fold in the chopped prunes gently.
Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.
Bake and serve
Place the dish in a pan of hot water and bake for 30 minutes.
Serve immediately in the same dish with whipped cream or cold boiled custard.
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.
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 foam, they trap air and provide the light, rising structure of the soufflé.
- Cream of tartar
- Stabilizes the whipped egg whites, helping them hold stiff peaks longer.
- Powdered sugar
- Dissolves into the whites, adding sweetness and making the foam more stable.
- Prunes
- Add the main flavour and moisture, folded in so they stay distributed through the airy mixture.
The step that matters
Folding in the prunes. Folding gently preserves the air whipped into the egg whites. Stirring or deflating the foam makes the soufflé heavy and less able to rise during baking.
“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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