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Prune Whip
Sweeten to taste and stew three-quarters of a pound of prunes; when perfectly cold, add the whites of four eggs beaten stiff; stir all of this together till light, put in a dish, and bake twenty minutes; when cold, serve in a larger dish, and cover well with good cream.
A baked fruit meringue of the plainest kind: stewed prune purée lightened with beaten whites and set in the oven. Two details in the original decide whether it works.
- The hinge: cold purée, stiff whitesWarm prune pulp deflates beaten whites on contact and the whip bakes into a dense, weeping layer. Stew the prunes, purée them, and chill thoroughly before folding; fold rather than "stir" once the whites are in.
- PrunesThree-quarters of a pound is about 2 cups of pitted dried prunes. Modern prunes are usually already pitted and tend to be moister than nineteenth-century dried fruit, so 10-15 minutes' simmer in water to cover is generally enough. Drain well and reduce the pulp if it is loose.
- Sweeten to tasteTaste the purée before folding, not after. Two to four tablespoons of sugar per pound of fruit is a reasonable modern starting point; the whites carry no sugar of their own in this version, so the purée is the only sweetness.
- "Bake twenty minutes"The original gives no oven heat at all. Twenty minutes will work at a moderate 325-350F in a shallow buttered dish of a quart and a half or so; a deeper dish will need longer, and the centre should be just set and no longer wet.
- "A dish"Nothing is specified beyond "a dish"; an open baking dish, buttered, is the simplest reading, and there is no water bath in the original. The whip rises like a soufflé and sinks as it cools, which is expected here since it is served cold.
- "Good cream"Unwhipped pouring cream, poured over at the table. Heavy cream is likely closer to nineteenth-century dairy cream than half-and-half; a thin custard sauce is one alternative.
- YieldServes four to six as written. It does not keep well beyond a day; the meringue weeps and the purée separates.
Prune whip belongs to the family of "whips" and "snows" that fill the cream-and-custard chapters of American household books of the 1870s and 80s -- fruit pulp extended with beaten egg white, either served raw and chilled or, as here, baked to set it. Buckeye Cookery (first published in Ohio in 1877 and reissued for decades under the Buckeye name) was compiled from contributed household receipts, and the dish is a plain one: it uses dried fruit available all winter, four egg whites left over from other cooking, and no gelatine, cornstarch or arrowroot. Whips of this kind are often said to have had a place in invalid and convalescent cookery, prunes being valued for the obvious digestive reason.