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Dessert

Nesselrode Pudding

A chilled chestnut and cream pudding flavored with candied cherries, citron, almonds, and aromatic extracts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chestnut and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 130 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Nesselrode Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chestnut base

  1. Blanch the chestnuts and boil for 1 hour.

  2. Mash the chestnuts and pass them through a sieve.

  3. In a double boiler, combine the chestnut puree with the rich cream.

  4. Stir in the beaten egg whites until well mixed.

Flavour and freeze

  1. Cool the mixture, then add the candied cherries, shredded citron, chopped almonds, and extracts.

  2. Freeze the mixture until firm.

  3. Serve with whipped cream.

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. Chestnut + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together130 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Chestnut + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together244 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Vanilla + rosetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together456 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chestnuts
Provide the starchy, creamy body that gives the pudding its base texture.
Rich cream
Adds fat and richness, giving a smooth, velvety mouthfeel.
Egg whites
Add protein that helps lightly set and structure the custard-like mixture.
Candied cherries
Add sweetness and chewy bits of fruit throughout the pudding.
Blanched almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavour against the smooth base.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg whites until well mixed. Egg whites must be fully blended into the warm chestnut cream so they set evenly and do not leave streaks or lumps in the frozen dessert.

Swap the chestnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg, almond, vanilla, rose):

  1. Pistachiofits better
  2. Hazelnutfits about as well
  3. Chestnutthe original
  4. Brazil nutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, almond, vanilla, rose. 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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