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Dessert

Hot Ice Pudding

A chilled custard mixture topped with meringue, cherries, and angelica, then briefly baked until the meringue browns.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Hot Ice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the ice

  1. In a basin, mix the custard, whipped cream, coffee essence, and liqueur.

  2. Freeze the mixture until very firm.

  3. Layer wafers in a fireproof dish and pile the ice mixture on top in a neat pyramid shape.

Make the meringue

  1. Make a meringue by beating the egg whites and ⅓ cup sugar until stiff peaks form.

  2. Cover the ice with the meringue and quickly decorate with cherries and angelica.

Bake and serve

  1. Place in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 6 minutes until the outside is brown and hot, while the inside remains frozen.

  2. Serve immediately.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Cream + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Sugar + coffeetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

  4. Cream + angelicatop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together237 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue that forms a insulating, browning topping over the ice.
Custard
Provides a creamy base that freezes firm enough to hold its pyramid shape.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture to the frozen mixture.
Sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps the egg whites hold stable peaks.

The step that matters

Covering the ice with meringue and baking briefly. The ice must be frozen solid and the meringue applied quickly, then baked only briefly in a very hot oven. Meringue insulates the ice so the surface browns while the centre stays frozen; a longer bake or slow melting lets the dessert collapse.](),

Swap the angelica

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, coffee, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, coffee, egg. 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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