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Dessert

Frozen Pudding

A chilled dessert made from milk, cream, eggs, sugar, brandy, and candied fruits and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Frozen Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a pan, combine 1 pint of milk and part of the sugar, and scald without boiling.

  2. Beat the 4 eggs with the remaining sugar until well combined.

  3. Once the milk is scalded, add the egg mixture, stirring over heat until it thickens.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the quart of cream.

Freeze and finish

  1. Freeze the mixture until it starts to stiffen.

  2. Gradually add the brandy to taste.

  3. Fold in the chopped fruits and nuts.

  4. Repack for storage.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Milk + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together982 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the custard as they cook gently with the warm milk and sugar.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and dissolves the sugar when scalded.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother, softer frozen texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and lowers the freezing point, keeping the dessert softer.
Brandy or wine
Adds aroma and flavour, and its alcohol keeps the frozen texture softer.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs into the hot milk until thickened. Eggs can scramble if heated too quickly. Adding the egg mixture to scalded milk while stirring over gentle heat lets the custard thicken smoothly without curdling.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, cream, egg, brandy. 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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