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Dessert

Fruit Pudding

A gelatin-based dessert made with fruit, nuts, and sugar, served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ½ pint cold water.

  2. Add ¼ pint boiling water, juice of the lemons and oranges, and sugar.

  3. Strain the mixture and let it stand until it thickens slightly.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the finely chopped fruit and nuts.

  2. 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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Fig + bananatop 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 soft, wobbly structure as it cools.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the citrus juice.
Lemons and oranges
Provide acidity and fresh citrus flavour to the set gelatine.
Figs and dates
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness through the set gelatine.
English walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft gelatine.

The step that matters

Let the mixture thicken slightly before adding fruit. Gelatine begins to set as it cools. If the mixture is still too runny, the chopped fruit and nuts will sink rather than stay suspended. If it has set too firmly, they will not mix in evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, orange, fig, dates, walnut, banana, 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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