Skip to main content

Frozen Plum Pudding

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Frozen Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Make a custard by combining milk, sugar, and eggs in a saucepan over medium heat until thickened.

  2. Let the custard cool, then stir in cream.

  3. Add the citron, marshmallows, raisins, dates, figs, cinnamon, cloves, and chocolate coloring.

  4. Pack the mixture in ice and let it stand for about three hours.

  5. Serve with whipped cream.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cinnamon + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  5. Clove + figtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

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

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

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, egg, clove, raisin, fig, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Pearfits about as well
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, egg, clove, raisin, fig, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

You might also like