Name: Prune Souffle
Ingredients: 1 pound stewed prunes; 2 egg whites; ½ cup sugar; 1 pint milk; yolks of 2 eggs; sugar to taste; vanilla flavoring

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Prune Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prunes

Stew the prunes and boil down the juice.
Remove the stones and mash the prunes in the juice.

Make and bake the soufflé

Beat the egg whites until stiff, gradually adding the sugar while beating.
Stir in the mashed prunes.
Bake for 20 minutes.

Serve

Serve with hot custard sauce made from milk, egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla.

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.

Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Stewed prunes: Provide moisture, sweetness, and the main flavor of the soufflé.
Egg whites: Trap air when beaten, giving the soufflé its light structure and rise.
Sugar: Sweetens the dish and helps stabilize the beaten egg whites.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks, since the trapped air is what lets the soufflé rise. Adding sugar gradually helps the foam stay stable. Under-beaten whites collapse, and over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy.

“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.