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Dessert

Plum Pudding Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made with chocolate, fruit, milk, and vanilla, set with gelatin and served with whipped cream or egg‑based sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Ronald · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Plum Pudding Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatin and milk

  1. Soak 1/2 box or 1 ounce of gelatin in 1 cupful of cold water for 1/2 hour.

  2. Dissolve the sugar in the milk, and put it in a double boiler to scald.

  3. Melt the chocolate on a dry pan; then add a few spoonfuls of the milk to make it smooth, and add it to the scalded milk.

  4. Remove from the fire, and add the soaked gelatin.

  5. Stir until the gelatin is dissolved; then strain it into a bowl.

Add fruit and set

  1. When it begins to set, or is firm enough to hold the fruit in place, stir in the fruit, which must have stood in warm water a little while to soften.

  2. Flavor with one half teaspoonful of vanilla, or a few drops of lemon.

  3. Turn it into a mold to harden.

Serve

  1. Serve with whipped cream, or a sauce made of the whipped white of one egg, one tablespoonful of powdered sugar, a cupful of milk, and a few drops of vanilla.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

556Calories
17 gProtein
28 gFat
59 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Chocolate1 oz (28g) semisweet155
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Vanilla1 tsp extract (4ml)12
Waternot 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 Mary Ronald. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Gelatin (in the method)
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly that holds the fruit in place.
Chocolate
Adds deep flavor and color to the milk mixture.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and sweetness to the set jelly.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the jelly.
Sugar
Sweetens the milk base and balances the chocolate.

The step that matters

Stir in the fruit at the right moment. Add the fruit only when the gelatin has begun to set but is still soft enough to stir. If it is too liquid, the fruit sinks to the bottom; if it is too firm, the fruit will not distribute evenly.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, sugar, milk, raisin, vanilla, cream, 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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