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Dessert

Ice Pudding

A chilled custard dessert flavored with brandy, maraschino, and candied fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Ice Pudding

Why it works: Pineapple and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 377 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Combine milk and eggs in a double saucepan, stirring until thickened.

  2. Add sugar, beat custard, then mix in brandy and maraschino.

  3. Set mixture on ice and let cool nearly completely.

Finish and freeze

  1. Stir in chopped candied fruits soaked in a little brandy.

  2. Whip cream to stiff peaks and fold into mixture.

  3. Pour mixture into ice mold and freeze.

  4. Do not unmold until ready to serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pineapple + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Brandy + apricottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Apricot + angelicatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together117 recipes

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

  5. Milk + apricottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the custard and give the frozen pudding its structure and richness.
Thick cream
Whipped into stiff peaks, it adds air and a light, creamy texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the eggs thicken.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens the texture of the frozen mixture.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour and softens the freezing texture of the mixture.

The step that matters

Let the custard cool nearly completely before adding the cream. Folding whipped cream into warm custard melts the cream and deflates its air, so the frozen pudding turns dense and loses its light texture.

Swap the angelica

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, egg, sugar, brandy, pineapple, apricot):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Angelicathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, egg, sugar, brandy, pineapple, apricot. 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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