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Dessert

Iced Pudding

A chilled almond-based dessert made by cooking almond paste with eggs, sugar, and milk, then freezing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,800 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Iced Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almond base

  1. Thoroughly dry the almonds in a cloth, then pound them in a mortar until smooth.

  2. Add the well-beaten eggs, sugar, and milk to the almond paste.

  3. Stir the mixture over low heat until it thickens, but do not let it boil.

  4. Strain the mixture and pour it into a freezing pot.

Freeze and serve

  1. Surround the pot with ice and freeze according to the instructions in recipe 1290.

  2. Once frozen, fill an iced pudding mold, cover with the lid, and keep in ice until serving.

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. Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavor of the pudding once pounded into a smooth paste.
Bitter almonds
Add a deeper, more pronounced almond aroma to the base.
Eggs
Thicken the custard base as they set with gentle heat, giving structure to the frozen pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the frozen pudding.
Milk
Supplies liquid that forms the custard base and adds creaminess.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture over low heat until it thickens, but do not let it boil.. Egg proteins set gently as the custard warms; if it boils, the eggs can scramble and turn grainy, ruining the smooth texture needed for freezing.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Cocoafits about as well
  4. Walnutfits about as well

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