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Dessert

Frozen Pudding

A chilled custard pudding made with milk, eggs, sugar, almonds, rosewater, raisins, and preserves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Frozen Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Make a custard with the milk, eggs, and sugar.

Prepare and combine

  1. Blend the blanched almonds with the rosewater to form a batter.

  2. Combine the almond batter, raisins, and preserves with the custard.

Freeze

  1. Stir frequently while freezing until solid.

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. Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

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

  2. Almond + cherrytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together672 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Milk + cherrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the custard as they set and give it a rich, smooth body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds creaminess.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and lowers its freezing point for a softer texture.
Almonds
Add nutty flavor and body to the batter folded into the custard.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Stir frequently while freezing. Stirring breaks up ice crystals as the mixture chills, keeping the frozen pudding smooth and creamy rather than grainy or icy.

Swap the cherry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Cherrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, almond, raisin. 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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