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Dessert

Fruit Pudding

A gelatin-based dessert made with fruit, sugar, lemon juice, and wine or fruit juice, served chilled with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatine base

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in cold water and let it stand for 2 hours.

  2. Add boiling water, lemon juice, sugar, and wine or fruit juice.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Set and serve

  1. When the mixture begins to harden, stir in the cut fruits and walnuts.

  2. Pour the mixture into moulds.

  3. Refrigerate until set.

  4. Serve with flavored 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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Fig + datestop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

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

  4. Fig + walnuttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together373 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

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 pudding as it cools.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the fruit.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds body to the set mixture.
Figs
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness to the set pudding.
Dates
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the set pudding.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavor that contrasts the soft set.

The step that matters

Stir in the fruit and walnuts when the mixture begins to harden. If the gelatine is still fully liquid, the pieces sink to the bottom. If it has set too far, they will not distribute evenly and the pudding becomes lumpy when poured into moulds.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Pistachiofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, wine, orange, banana, fig, dates. 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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