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Dessert

Frozen Nut Pudding

A chilled custard dessert made with milk, eggs, sugar, chocolate, candied cherries, citron, sherry, nuts, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Nut Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Beat the eggs with the sugar and stir into the milk until it thickens like boiled custard.

  3. Remove from heat, add the grated chocolate, and stir until dissolved.

  4. Strain and chill.

Add the fruit and freeze

  1. Soak the candied cherries and chopped citron in a little sherry for 2 hours.

  2. Freeze the custard until it is very thick.

  3. Add the drained fruit, chopped nuts, vanilla, and sherry.

  4. Finish freezing.

Mold and bury in ice

  1. Pack into a melon mold, cover, and bind the edges with a strip of buttered muslin.

  2. Bury in ice and salt for 2 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Sherry + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 milk into a custard as they cook gently, giving the base its body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken and the chocolate melts into.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the frozen texture.
Grated chocolate
Adds rich flavour and fat, and melts smoothly into the warm custard.
Nut meats
Add crunchy texture that contrasts with the smooth frozen custard.

The step that matters

Stirring the beaten eggs into the milk until it thickens. Egg proteins set when heated, so the mixture thickens into custard. If it gets too hot or is heated too fast, the eggs can scramble and curdle, so keep the heat gentle and stir constantly.

“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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