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Dessert

Prune Whip

A baked dessert of prunes folded into stiff egg whites and sweetened with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Prune Whip

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Prune Whip

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. Steam the prunes in a small amount of water until very soft.

  2. Remove the seeds and pass the prunes through a colander.

  3. Mix the sugar into the prunes.

Make the meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gradually fold the prunes into the egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes.

  2. Serve with whipped 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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

French prunes
Provide the main fruit flavour and moisture, sweetened and softened into the meringue base.
Sugar
Sweetens the prune mixture and helps stabilise the beaten egg whites.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the dessert its light, airy structure when baked.

The step that matters

Gradually fold the prunes into the egg whites. Adding the prunes too quickly or stirring vigorously deflates the whipped egg white foam, which leads to a dense, weepy result instead of a light meringue.

“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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