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Dessert

Ice Pudding a LA Reine

A chilled custard dessert served with mixed fruit and liqueur‑infused syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 342 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ice Pudding a LA Reine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, bring the milk and cream to a boil.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  3. In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and powdered sugar until well combined.

  4. Gradually add the warm milk and cream mixture to the egg yolks, whisking continuously.

  5. Return the mixture to the heat and stir gently with a wooden spoon until it thickens into a custard, being careful not to let it curdle.

Prepare the fruit

  1. In a large bowl, combine the currants, strawberries, grapes, peaches, apricots, pears, and cherries.

  2. Pour the maraschino, noyau, brandy, champagne, and elder-blossom syrup over the fruit and mix well.

  3. Cover the fruit mixture and chill in a basin filled with pounded ice until ready to serve.

Serve

  1. When serving, turn out the pudding and arrange the fruit mixture around it, pouring the syrup and liquor over the top.

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. Peach + apricottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Grape + apricottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together477 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Grape + peachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set on gentle heating, giving it body and richness.
Milk and cream
Form the rich custard base that sets into the body of the pudding.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the custard and dissolves easily into the egg yolks.
Currants
Add tart acidity and bright flavour to the chilled fruit mixture.
Maraschino
Adds aromatic cherry-almond flavour that perfumes the fruit.

The step that matters

Stirring the custard over heat. Egg yolks thicken from gentle heat but curdle if overheated or stirred too vigorously, so the custard must be cooked slowly and stirred constantly until it coats a spoon.

Swap the black currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Black currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, egg, sugar, grape, peach, apricot. 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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