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Dessert

Frozen Plum Pudding and Sauce

A frozen dessert made with gelatin, cream, raisins, nuts, candied fruit, and eggs, served with optional whipped‑cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Frozen Plum Pudding and Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Dissolve the powdered gelatin in the boiling water.

  2. Cook together the sugar and cold water until they form a fine thread.

  3. Add this syrup to the beaten yolks of the eggs; beat until cool.

  4. Add the gelatin to the mixture.

Fold and freeze

  1. Fold in the whipped cream.

  2. Fold in the raisins and nuts.

  3. Freeze the mixture.

Pack and serve

  1. When ready to pack, add the candied fruits in alternate layers.

  2. If a sauce is desired, serve whipped cream sweetened and flavored with vanilla.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

240Calories
7 gProtein
11 gFat
30 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 8 ingredients. The other 4 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Waternot in our table0
Nutnot in our table0
Meatnot in our table0
Fruitnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the base and add richness and structure to the frozen mixture.
Powdered gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when frozen and sliced.
Whipped cream
Adds air and fat, giving the frozen pudding a light, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point, keeping the texture soft.
Mixed chopped nut meats
Add crunch and contrast to the soft, creamy frozen texture.

The step that matters

Beat the syrup into the yolks until cool. Hot syrup added too quickly can scramble the egg yolks, and the mixture must cool before the gelatine and cream are folded in so the cream does not melt and deflate.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, meat, egg. 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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