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Dessert

Prune Whip

A dessert made from soft prunes, egg whites, sugar, scalded milk, flour, and egg yolks, baked and cooked into a custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Prune Whip

Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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. Drain and seed the prunes, then chop them finely.

Make the whip

  1. Beat the egg whites and mix them with the chopped prunes and sugar.

  2. Bake the mixture for 20 minutes in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

Make the custard

  1. In a double boiler, combine the scalded milk, flour, sugar, and beaten egg yolks.

  2. Cook until it thickens into a soft custard.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 the main fruit flavour and body of the whip.
Egg whites
Whipped to a foam that gives the whip its light, airy structure.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they cook, giving it a smooth, set texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding richness and softness.
Sugar
Sweetens the whip and helps stabilise the beaten egg white foam.
Flour
Stabilises the custard so it thickens without curdling.

The step that matters

Cook the custard gently in a double boiler. Egg yolks set at low, steady heat; too much heat can curdle them into lumps. Gentle cooking keeps the custard smooth and thick.

“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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