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Dessert

Prune Souffle

A baked dessert made from stewed prunes folded into stiff egg whites, served cold with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. 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 prunes

  1. Soak the prunes overnight, then stew and sweeten them.

  2. Remove the stones and mash the prunes.

Make the soufflé

  1. Beat the egg whites until very stiff, then gradually fold in the mashed prunes.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve cold 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.

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 + 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
Provide sweetness, moisture and a dense, fruity body to the soufflé.
Egg whites
Trap air when whipped, creating the structure that lifts and lightens the soufflé.

The step that matters

Beating and folding the egg whites. Whites must be beaten until very stiff so they trap enough air to lift the soufflé. Folding gently keeps that air in; vigorous stirring deflates the foam and leaves a heavy result.

“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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