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Dessert

Prune Blanc-mange

A chilled dessert made from prunes, cornstarch, sugar, salt, lemon juice, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Prune Blanc-mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prunes

  1. Wash the prunes thoroughly and soak them overnight in 2 to 3 quarts of water.

  2. Simmer the prunes until tender.

Make and chill the blanc-mange

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites until foamy but not dry.

  2. Mold the mixture in cups and refrigerate until very cold.

Serve

  1. Serve with 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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 dessert.
Cornstarch
Thickens the prune liquid so the mixture can hold its shape when chilled.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the tart fruit and lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the prunes.
Egg whites
Trap air when beaten, giving the mixture a light, foamy texture.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites until foamy but not dry. Egg white foam traps air and lightens the texture. Overbeaten whites turn dry and grainy, lose their stretch, and do not blend smoothly into the fruit mixture, so the dessert becomes dense and uneven.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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