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Dessert

Iced Pudding

A frozen custard dessert with dried fruit, whipped cream, and optional maraschino.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 911 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Iced Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare custard by combining egg yolks, boiled milk, sugar, and vanilla; cook until thickened.

  2. Freeze the custard in the usual manner.

Add fruit and freeze

  1. Once partially frozen, mix in the dried fruits and whipped cream.

  2. If using, add maraschino at the same time as the fruits.

  3. Transfer the mixture into a mold and place it on ice and salt.

Serve

  1. Serve with additional 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. Vanilla + pineappletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together911 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together885 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness through emulsifying fat and proteins.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and air, giving the frozen pudding a softer, creamier texture.
Dried fruits
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the frozen custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and lowers its freezing point, keeping it softer when frozen.

The step that matters

Mix in the fruits and cream once partially frozen. If the custard is fully frozen, the dried fruit and whipped cream will not blend evenly and the mixture becomes icy and lumpy. Adding them while still partly soft lets them fold in and keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Pineapplethe original

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