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Dessert

Prune Dessert

A baked dessert of stewed prunes folded into stiffened egg whites and powdered sugar.

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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Stew the prunes until soft, then chop them finely.

  2. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  3. Fold in the powdered sugar and chopped prunes.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold and place it in a pan of hot water.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately from the oven with 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.

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. Egg + sugartop 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

Prunes
Add moisture, sweetness and a dense, fruity body to the dessert.
Egg whites
Trap air when whipped, giving the dessert its light, risen structure as it sets.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.

The step that matters

Fold in the powdered sugar and chopped prunes. Whipped egg whites hold air that makes the dessert rise. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air in the mixture so the dessert bakes up light instead of heavy and flat.

“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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