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Dessert

Benedictine Ice Pudding

A chilled dessert made from sugar, chocolate, water, egg whites, and starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Benedictine Ice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Grate the chocolate and combine it with the sugar and water in a lined saucepan over low heat.

  2. If the chocolate lacks flavor, add a splash of vanilla.

  3. Melt the mixture until smooth, about 10 minutes.

Make the icing

  1. For icing, beat the egg whites to a strong froth.

  2. Gradually sift in the powdered sugar and add the finely powdered starch.

  3. Beat until the mixture is smooth.

Ice and dry

  1. Spread the icing evenly over the cakes.

  2. Place the cakes in a cool oven to dry and harden without coloring.

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. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Chocolate + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pounded loaf sugar
Provides sweetness and body, dissolving into the syrup and setting the icing structure.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the icing its light, airy structure.
Chocolate
Supplies the main flavor and color of the icing.
Fine starch
Thickens the icing and helps it hold its shape as it dries.

The step that matters

Gradually sift in the powdered sugar. Adding sugar slowly keeps the egg white foam stable. Dumping it in at once can deflate the foam and leave the icing grainy or runny.

“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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