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Dessert

Fruit Jelly Pudding

A chilled pudding made with figs, fruit jelly, milk, eggs, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and fig match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 324 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fruit Jelly Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Soak the figs in warm water until soft, then split them.

  2. Dip each piece in the jelly and line a buttered mold with them.

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk and stir in the beaten yolks and sugar; return to the saucepan and stir until thickened.

  2. Melt the gelatine by adding it to boiling water in a hot water bath; once melted, add it to the milk mixture and cool.

  3. When it begins to congeal, whisk it thoroughly and gradually add the whipped egg white.

  4. Beat rapidly until spongy, then fill the fig-lined mold.

Set and serve

  1. Set in a cold place for at least 5-6 hours until firm.

  2. Dip the mold in hot water to loosen the pudding before serving on a glass dish.

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. Vanilla + figtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together324 recipes

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

  2. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Fig + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Sugar + figtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 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
Yolks thicken the custard and whipped whites lighten the pudding into a spongy set.
Gelatine
Sets the milk custard so the pudding holds its shape when unmolded.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the custard that the gelatine sets.
Figs
Provide fruit flavour and a visible pattern when the pudding is turned out.
Fruit jelly
Glazes the figs and adds sweetness and fruit flavour to the lining.

The step that matters

Adding the gelatine to the custard. Gelatine must be fully melted and the custard only just beginning to congeal before whipping. If it sets too far, the mixture becomes lumpy and will not fold smoothly with the egg whites, giving a dense rather than spongy texture.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Figthe original
  2. Peachfits about as well
  3. Blueberryfits about as well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vanilla, milk, 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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