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Dessert

Nesselrode Pudding

A custard pudding made with milk, cream, egg yolks, sugar, vanilla, walnuts, candied cherries, and candied mixed fruits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 ↓

Nesselrode Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Beat the egg yolks slightly.

  3. Add sugar to the egg yolks.

  4. Pour the hot milk over the egg yolks slowly.

  5. Return the mixture to the double boiler.

  6. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

  7. Cool the mixture.

  8. Add cream and vanilla to the mixture.

Freeze with mix-ins

  1. Cover the mixture and freeze.

  2. When partly frozen, stir in chopped walnuts.

  3. Stir in chopped fruits that have soaked in boiling water until soft, then drain them.

  4. Finish freezing.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Vanilla + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they cook and add richness to the frozen texture.
Cream
Adds fat that keeps the frozen pudding smooth and creamy rather than icy.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and lowers the freezing point, keeping the texture softer.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the egg yolks thicken into a custard.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a contrast to the smooth frozen custard.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard for 3 minutes while stirring constantly. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but if they get too hot or are left unstirred they can scramble and turn grainy. Constant stirring in a double boiler keeps the heat even so the custard stays smooth.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vanilla, milk, egg, cream, sugar. 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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