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Dessert

Frozen Pudding

A chilled dessert made from macaroons, sherry, eggs, sugar, milk, cream, and ground burnt almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Roll the macaroons and pour the sherry over them.

  2. Beat the eggs and sugar until light.

  3. Add the milk and scald the mixture.

  4. Once cool, pour the mixture over the macaroons and sherry.

Finish and freeze

  1. Add the whipped cream and mix well.

  2. Fold in the ground burnt almonds.

  3. Pack the mixture in ice and salt for 3 to 4 hours.

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

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

  2. Sherry + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together517 recipes

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

  3. Sherry + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stale macaroons
Absorb the sherry and add body and flavour to the custard base.
Eggs
Thicken the custard and add richness as they set when scalded.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the frozen pudding a smooth, light texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens the texture of the frozen result.
Sherry
Adds aroma and flavour that soaks into the macaroons.

The step that matters

Scalding the egg and milk mixture. Heating the eggs gently with milk thickens the custard as the proteins set. Overheating can curdle the eggs, so the mixture should be heated only until it thickens slightly, then cooled fully before combining.

Swap the almond

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

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

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