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Dessert

Cold Puddings

A collection of chilled puddings including a jelly with fruits, a tapioca cream, and a peach tapioca.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Young Men's Christian Association (Montpelier, Vt.). Women of the Auxiliary · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Cold Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatine jelly

  1. Soak one half box of gelatine in half a cup of cold water.

  2. Dissolve the gelatine in half a pint of boiling water.

  3. Add a cup of sugar, half a cup of orange juice, and the juice of three lemons.

  4. Harden fruits in the jelly in layers, using figs, dates, bananas, walnuts, and cherries.

  5. Garnish with beaten cream, sweetened and flavored.

Make the tapioca custard

  1. Soak three tablespoonfuls of tapioca overnight in water.

  2. In the morning turn the tapioca into one quart of milk, add a little salt, half a cup of sugar, the white of one egg, and the yolks of two eggs.

  3. Cook in a double boiler until clear.

  4. Pour the mixture into a mould.

  5. Frost with the white of the egg.

Bake and serve the peach pudding

  1. Soak one cup of tapioca overnight in two cups of water.

  2. In the morning put the tapioca into a double boiler; when it boils, add a cup of sugar, and boil until it is clear.

  3. Cut up a dozen peaches into small pieces and lay them in a pudding dish.

  4. Sprinkle half a cup of sugar over the peaches.

  5. Pour the tapioca over the peaches.

  6. Bake for about fifteen minutes.

  7. Serve with cream.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

350Calories
16 gProtein
14 gFat
44 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 8 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Orange1 medium (131g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Puddingnot 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.

By Young Men's Christian Association (Montpelier, Vt.). Women of the Auxiliary. 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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Gelatine
Sets the orange and lemon juice into a firm, sliceable jelly.
Tapioca
Thickens the milk and water as it cooks, giving a clear, soft body.
Eggs
Enrich the custard and add structure and richness when set.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly, custard and peach layer and balances the acidity of the lemon and orange.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the tapioca custard, adding richness and softness.

The step that matters

Cook the tapioca in a double boiler until clear. Tapioca starch only thickens fully when it is heated long enough to swell and turn clear. Stopping early leaves a grainy, thin pudding, and scorching over direct heat can make it stick.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Blueberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, lemon, 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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