Why it works: Vanilla and pear match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 334 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓
Iced Pudding a LA Feroy Bysshe Shelley
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, cream, sugar, and vanilla sugar until well combined.
Add the maraschino and freeze the mixture until it is quite stiff.
Finish and freeze
Once frozen, fold in the mixed dried fruits.
Fill a mold with the mixture and freeze again.
Serve
To serve, embed the mold in rough ice and salt.
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.
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Vanilla + peartop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together334 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Vanilla + pineappletop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together911 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Pineapple + peartop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together169 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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
- Eggs yolks
- Add richness and help the mixture set smooth and creamy when frozen.
- Cream
- Adds fat, which keeps the frozen pudding soft and smooth rather than icy.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and lowers the freezing point, keeping it scoopable.
- Mixed dried fruits
- Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the frozen pudding.
The step that matters
Freeze until quite stiff before folding in the fruit. If the base is not frozen enough, the dried fruit sinks and distributes unevenly. Partial freezing gives a base firm enough to hold the fruit in suspension.
Swap the pear
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, sugar, vanilla, pineapple):
- Strawberryfits better
- Bananafits about as well
- Figfits about as well
- Pearthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, sugar, vanilla, pineapple. 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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