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Dessert

Frozen Pudding

A chilled custard dessert made with milk, sugar, eggs, vanilla, candied fruit, rum, and heavy cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Frozen Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Combine milk, sugar, and eggs in a saucepan to make a soft custard.

  2. Cook the mixture over low heat until thickened.

  3. Let the custard cool.

  4. Stir in vanilla extract, salt, and finely chopped candied fruit.

  5. Add Jamaica rum to the custard.

  6. Let the mixture stand for 3 to 4 hours.

Freeze

  1. Add heavy cream to the custard and mix well.

  2. Freeze the mixture until it is partly frozen.

  3. Add the candied fruit to the partly frozen mixture.

  4. Continue freezing until the pudding is hard.

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

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

  2. Vanilla + rumtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together728 recipes

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

  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. Milk + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together967 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

Eggs
Thicken the custard when cooked and help give it a rich, set texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and carries the sugar and eggs.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and softens the texture of the frozen dessert.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and richness, giving a smoother, creamier frozen texture.
Candied fruit
Adds sweetness, chewy texture and concentrated fruit flavor throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture over low heat until thickened. Eggs can curdle or scramble if heated too quickly. Gentle heat lets the egg proteins thicken the milk evenly into a smooth custard.

“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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