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Dessert

Diplomatic Pudding

A chilled custard-based pudding with sponge cake, ratafia biscuits, cherries, angelica, citron peel, cream, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Angelica and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 189 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Diplomatic Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Line a mold.

  2. Decorate the mold with neatly cut pieces of cherry and angelica.

Make the custard base

  1. Cut the sponge cake into small pieces.

  2. Crumble the ratafia biscuits.

  3. Pour the custard over the cake and biscuits.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

  5. Half-whip the cream.

  6. Cut the cherries into small pieces. Peel the cherries. Cut the angelica into small pieces.

  7. Add the cherries, peel, and angelica to the custard mixture.

  8. Sweeten and flavor the mixture.

  9. Add the dissolved gelatine to the mixture.

Set and serve

  1. Mould the mixture when it is beginning to set.

  2. Turn out the pudding.

  3. Decorate with chopped jelly.

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. Angelica + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together189 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Biscuit + angelicatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Angelica + vanillatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  5. Biscuit + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together422 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

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

Sponge cake
Forms the bulk of the pudding and soaks up the custard, giving it body.
Custard
Provides moisture and a soft, creamy texture once it sets around the cake.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when turned out of the mold.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when half-whipped into the mixture.
Ratafia biscuits
Add a concentrated almond flavour and some crumbly texture to the base.

The step that matters

Mould the mixture when it is beginning to set. If gelatine is fully set, the mixture cannot be poured or packed into the mold evenly; if too liquid, it will not hold its shape when turned out. Timing at the early setting point gives a firm but workable mixture.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Apricotfits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, angelica, cream, sugar, vanilla. 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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