Skip to main content
Dessert

Nesselrode Pudding

A fruit pudding made with chopped French maroons, cherries, pineapple, raisins, brandy or rum, folded into vanilla ice cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pineapple and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 911 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Nesselrode Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Finely chop the French maroons, cherries, and pineapple.

  2. In a bowl, mix the chopped fruits with the seedless raisins.

  3. Add enough brandy or rum to create a paste.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Fold the mixture into the vanilla ice cream.

  2. When packing, use only a small amount of coarse sea salt to avoid making the pudding too hard.

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. Pineapple + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together911 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Brandy + vanillatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Raisin + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together782 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Pineapple + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

French maroons
Provide chewy, sweet pieces that give the pudding body and texture.
French cherries
Add sweetness and tart fruit flavor with a soft, chewy texture.
French pineapple
Adds bright acidity and fruity sweetness that cut through the rich cream.
Seedless raisins
Contribute chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Vanilla ice cream
Forms the creamy base that the fruit is folded into.

The step that matters

Adding the salt when packing. Salt lowers the freezing point of the ice cream mixture, so too much makes the pudding stay soft or harden unevenly; a small amount keeps it firm but scoopable.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pineapple, brandy, vanilla, cream):

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Blackberryfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, brandy, vanilla, cream. 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.

You might also like

Pineapple SherbetPineapple Sherbet116 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesPineapple PuddingPineapple Pudding72 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes