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Dessert

Prune Whip

A dessert made with whipped egg whites, mashed prunes, sugar, vanilla, and a milk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Prune Whip

Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 Whip

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.

Make the prune whip

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Add the mashed prunes, sugar, and vanilla, and mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pan and set in a 400°F (200°C) oven to brown.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, heat the milk until near boiling.

  2. Beat in the egg yolks mixed with ½ cup sugar.

  3. Remove from heat when boiling.

  4. Let the sauce cool.

  5. Flavor the sauce with 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.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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).

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

Egg whites
Beaten to a stiff froth, they trap air and give the whip its light, airy structure.
Prunes
Mashed prunes add body, moisture, and a fruity sweetness to the whip.
Egg yolks
Cooked into the milk, they thicken the sauce into a smooth custard.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce, which the egg yolks thicken as it heats.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth. Egg white foam holds air only when whipped enough to form stiff peaks; under-whipped whites collapse, leaving the whip dense instead of light.

“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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