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Dessert

Cherry Pudding

A chilled gelatin dessert made with canned cherries, lemon, sherry, and a currant jelly cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cherry Pudding

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 ↓

Cherry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in cold water over low heat.

  2. Mix in the cherries, lemon juice, lemon rind, sherry, and sugar.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate until set.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, whip the cream and fold in the currant jelly.

  2. Serve the pudding chilled with the cream sauce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Wine + curranttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the cherry liquid into a firm, sliceable pudding as it cools.
Cherries
Provide the main fruit flavour, colour and body of the pudding.
Heavy cream
Whipped to form a light, rich sauce that contrasts with the chilled pudding.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity tartness to the whipped cream sauce.
Sherry wine
Adds aroma and a mellow, slightly sweet depth to the fruit mixture.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine in cold water over low heat. Gelatine must dissolve fully without boiling, since overheating weakens its setting power. Undissolved granules leave gritty spots and an uneven, weak set.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sherry, wine, sugar, 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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