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Dessert

Iced Fruit Pudding

A chilled gelatin dessert with bananas, oranges, dates, figs, and sugar, served with whipped cream or custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and fig match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 104 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Iced Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatine base

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in cold water.

  2. Combine the boiling water with the dissolved gelatine.

  3. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved.

Set and serve

  1. Mix in the sliced bananas, orange pieces, dates, and figs.

  2. Cool the mixture until set.

  3. Serve with whipped cream or soft custard.

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. Banana + figtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Dates + figtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Orange + figtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together407 recipes

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

  4. Banana + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable body as it cools.
Bananas
Add body, sweetness and soft texture to the set pudding.
Oranges
Add acidity and juicy texture that brightens the sweet pudding.
Dates
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Figs
Add chewy texture and mild sweetness through the set pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the fruit.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture until set. Gelatine only sets once the liquid is cool enough and given enough time to chill. Adding the fruit while the mixture is still very hot, or serving before it is firm, can leave a loose pudding that does not hold its shape.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (banana, dates, fig, sugar, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, dates, fig, 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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