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Dessert

Plum Pudding Ice Cream

A chilled dessert made with eggs, sugar, milk, chocolate, fruit, nuts, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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.

  2. Add the sugar.

  3. Stir in the scalded milk gradually.

  4. Add the melted chocolate.

  5. Cook for several minutes, then remove from heat.

  6. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  7. Gently mix in the whipped cream once cool.

Prepare the fruit

  1. Simmer the chopped fruits with a small amount of sugar until warm.

  2. Cool the fruit mixture.

Freeze and serve

  1. Pour the first mixture into a freezer.

  2. Partially freeze.

  3. Remove from the freezer.

  4. Add the fruit mixture and nuts.

  5. Pack in ice and salt.

  6. Let stand for three hours before serving.

  7. Serve with whipped cream on top.

  8. Decorate 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 thicken the custard base, and whipped whites add lightness to the frozen mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and keeps the frozen texture softer by lowering the freezing point.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that becomes the ice cream.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and airiness, making the frozen texture creamier and lighter.
Sweet chocolate
Contributes rich flavour and fat to the custard base.

The step that matters

Cook the custard gently. Egg yolk proteins thicken the milk as they heat, but if the mixture overheats or cooks too long it can scramble and turn grainy. Stirring keeps the heat even.

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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