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Dessert

To Make a Transparent Pudding

A clear jelly pudding layered with almonds, raisins, citron, candied lemon, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

To Make a Transparent Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the jelly

  1. Make your calf's-foot jelly very stiff.

  2. Pour ½ cup of jelly into a china basin and let it set.

Layer the pudding

  1. Blanch and slice the almonds, raisins, citron, and candied lemon.

  2. Stick the almonds, raisins, citron, and candied lemon into the jelly, then sprinkle in some currants.

  3. Pour more jelly on top until it is an inch higher.

  4. Repeat layering the ingredients and jelly until the basin is full.

Set and serve

  1. Let it stand overnight, then turn it out onto a serving dish.

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 + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Lemon + curranttop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's-foot jelly
Forms the clear, stiff body that holds the fruit and nuts in place.
Jordan almonds
Provide crunchy texture and a firm bite against the soft jelly.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness within the jelly.
Citron
Adds a tart, aromatic bitterness that contrasts with the jelly.
Candied lemon
Adds sweetness and a bright citrus aroma to the layers.
Currants
Add small bursts of tartness and chewy texture between layers.

The step that matters

Make the jelly very stiff. Gelatin sets more firmly at higher concentration. If the jelly is too loose, the layers will blur together and the fruit and nuts will sink or float instead of staying suspended when turned out.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, raisin, lemon):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, raisin, lemon. 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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