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Dessert

Steamed Prune Whip

A steamed dessert made from egg whites, sugar, and finely chopped prunes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Steamed Prune Whip

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gently mix in the sugar and prunes.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the mixture in a buttered double boiler for 1½ hours.

  2. Serve with frozen, unsweetened 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 + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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
Beaten stiff, they trap air and give the whip its light, set structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the whip and helps stabilise the beaten egg white foam.
Prunes
Add fruity sweetness, flavour and moisture, with body from their fine-cut pieces.

The step that matters

Folding in the sugar and prunes. Stiff egg white foam is fragile. Mixing gently keeps air trapped inside, which is what lifts the whip during steaming. Overmixing deflates the foam and produces a dense 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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