Skip to main content
Dessert

Plum Pudding Ice Cream

A custard ice cream flavored with raisins, sultanas, almonds, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raisin and almond 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 ↓

Plum Pudding Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar until well combined.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into the hot milk over hot water until it thickens into a custard; strain and cool.

  4. Dissolve the cocoa in boiling water and boil for a moment; chill this mixture.

  5. Add the chilled cocoa, vanilla, and cream to the cooled custard and mix well.

Prepare the fruit and almonds

  1. Steam the raisins and sultanas until plump and tender.

  2. Blanch and finely chop the almonds; mix with just enough sherry to moisten and let stand for an hour.

Freeze and serve

  1. Pour the cream mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze until thick.

  2. Open the ice cream maker and fold in the fruit mixture, then finish freezing.

  3. Serve garnished with whipped cream and holly.

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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

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

  2. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Cocoa + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

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

Eggs
Thicken the milk into a custard and add richness and structure to the base.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and helps keep the frozen ice cream soft rather than hard.
Cocoa
Adds chocolate flavour and colour to the cream base.
Cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture in the frozen dessert.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken into custard.
Raisins and sultanas
Add chewy texture and sweetness to the finished ice cream.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture into the hot milk over hot water until it thickens into a custard. Eggs thicken when heated gently; too much heat scrambles them into lumps. Gentle, indirect heat over hot water lets the custard set smoothly.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Brazil nutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

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

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesCoconut PuddingCoconut Pudding26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipes