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Dessert

Plum Pudding Ice Cream

A custard-based ice cream mixed with dates, cherries, pecans, raisins, figs, chocolate, vanilla, milk, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 324 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Plum Pudding Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks and gradually stir in the sugar and scalded milk.

  2. Add the melted chocolate and cook for several minutes, then remove from heat.

  3. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites until combined.

  4. Once cool, gently mix in the whipped cream.

Prepare the fruit

  1. In a separate pot, simmer the chopped fruits with a small amount of sugar until softened, then allow to cool.

Freeze and serve

  1. Pour the first mixture into a freezer and partially freeze it.

  2. Remove it from the freezer, add the fruit mixture and nuts, then pack in ice and salt.

  3. Let it stand for three hours before serving with whipped cream and decorated with candied fruit.

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. Fig + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together324 recipes

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

  2. Dates + figtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Dates + pecanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Pecans + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks and whites enrich the custard and give it a smooth, set body.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, carrying the sugar and chocolate.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and softens the fruit while it simmers.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and air, making the frozen texture lighter and creamier.
Sweet chocolate
Adds flavour and richness to the custard base.
Dates
Contribute chewy texture and natural sweetness to the fruit mixture.

The step that matters

Partially freeze the custard before adding the fruit and nuts. Freezing the base only partly keeps ice crystals small and gives a creamy texture. A fully frozen base would be too hard to fold in the fruit and nuts evenly.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, dates, sugar, pecans, fig, chocolate, vanilla):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, dates, sugar, pecans, fig, chocolate, vanilla. 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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