Prune-Pecan Soufflé: It's better than you think

Spring is here, strawberries are in season, and we at A Book of Cookery are stewing prunes!

Pecan-Prune Souffle 1 (8-oz) package prunes 3 egg whites Pinch of salt ⅓ cup granulated sugar ½ teaspoon cinnamon ½ teaspoon vanilla ⅔ cup coarsely ground pecans Cook the prunes in simmering water until very soft. Depending on the prunes, this can take anywhere from five to thirty minutes. When they're done, coarsely chop them in a food processor or hand-cranked grinder. Place in a large mixing bowl and set aside. Heat oven to 325°. Grease a souffle dish (I used the insert from a rice cooker). Beat the egg whites and salt until stiff peaks form. Continue beating while you gradually sprinkle in the sugar. Beat until the whites are glossy and the sugar is dissolved. Fold the egg whites into the prunes in two or three additions. Then fold in the cinnamon, vanilla and walnuts. Turn into the dish. Bake 20 to 30 minutes. Serve at once with whipped cream, hard sauce (see below) or a custard sauce made with the egg yolks. For extra presentation, place in sherbet glasses and top each portion with a pecan half. Serves six to eight. Miss Mary Crow, 511 5th ave, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; Philadelphia Inquirer Recipe Exchange; November 8, 1935; page 14

Hard Sauce ¼ cup butter 1 tsp. vanilla ½ tsp. lemon extract ⅛ tsp. salt 1 tbsp. boiling water About 1¼ cups sifted powdered sugar Cream butter, beating until very soft and light. Stir in the vanilla, lemon extract, salt, and water. (They won't quite incorporate yet, but get them as mixed as possible.) Beat in the powdered sugar a little at a time until you have a very thick mixture. (You basically are making buttercream icing that is too spread on a cake.) Transfer to a plate and shape into a flat patty. Refrigerate at least half an hour. When serving, cut in thin slices and place on top of warm pudding. Mrs. Mary Martensen's Century of Progress Cook Book (recipes from The Chicago American), 1933, via The Internet Archive

Recipe Exchange; Philadelphia Inquirer; November 8, 1935

Mrs. Mary Martensen's Century of Progress Cook Book (recipes from The Chicago American), 1933

Now that we can buy cheap out-of-season produce (or at least, it was cheap-ish before the war), we have more or less forgotten how to turn dried fruit into lovely things. Sure, we still have a few recipes oatmeal-raisin cookies. But given where global events are headed, we might want to collectively relearn how to expressively use dried fruits. Our half-century run of December blueberries may have been bombed to a halt.

So we meet again: boiled prunes!

At first I thought ramming wet prunes through a meat grinder would only yield a drippy mess on the floor. But (short of getting out and subsequently cleaning the food processor) I couldn't think of any other way. Would you want stewed prunes slithering all over a cutting board?

Just like last time, this step of our prune whip actually looked kind of pretty. I loved the contrast between the dark, shiny fruit pulp and the pure white meringue. I may make a prune pavlova next time the holiday season rolls around. As long as no one asks what's in it until after they've tried it, I think everyone would like it.

As I knew would happen, our beautiful study in color contrast turned into a sand-colored mess with brown stringy bits.

And now we get to our other featured ingredient: pecans! Miss Mary Crow thought we should use walnuts, but I am allergic to them. Walnuts make me break out in rants.

Our sample spoonful tasted a lot better than I expected. Our last prune whip was underwhelming and bland, but this was actually good. Unfortunately, it was about as ugly as the applesauce-date mallow.

The last time we made a souffle, we had to use the insert from a rice cooker. But these days, with a full complement of pans crammed into the cabinets, we were able to select the perfect baking dish for this. It was... wait for it... the insert from the rice cooker.

I made sure our souffle would have plenty of rise in its pan. No one wants to clean burnt prunes off the oven floor. (Also, I don't want to break my 7-month streak of not having to take down the kitchen smoke detector.) This souffle barely puffed up, which hopefully meant it wouldn't dramatically shrink.

Don't you love when your dessert matches the table?

Next, it was time to put on the "hard sauce," which apparently is a booze-free brandy butter. In other words, it's buttercream frosting that is too thick to smear onto a cake. 

I borrowed a recipe from our favorite World's Fair giveaway book, Mrs. Mary Martensen's Recipes. She says "The exact amount of sugar cannot be stated, but the sauce must be stiff enough to stand alone." So I added enough to make our tiny little mound of butter hold up a spoon.

Our hard sauce tasted like very lemony buttercream, and was delicious as it melted and soaked into the prunes.

The prune souffle tasted unexpectedly like oatmeal-raisin cookie dough. I shouldn't be too surprised. Prunes taste a lot like oversized raisins, and the pecans and cinnamon completed the flavor.

As an afternote, I put the leftovers in the refrigerator overnight. (We do not have "six to eight persons" eager for prunes.) By the next day, the souffle had shrunk to a little prune puck. 

It's a little hard to appreciate the shrinkage, so let's add a dinner fork for scale.

So if you want to make your prunes serve six to eight, you probably shouldn't make this ahead.