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Dessert

Cold Pudding

A chilled dessert made from milk, cream, almonds, eggs, rose water, sugar, candied fruit, and topped with frothed cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Cold Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk and cream with the blanched and beaten almonds.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and whites, then add the rose water.

  3. Stir the boiling milk into the egg mixture, adding the sugar.

  4. Boil all together on low heat for 2 minutes.

Drain and shape

  1. Put the mixture in a cloth, tie it tight, and let it drain for 1 hour.

  2. Turn it out and beat in a wooden bowl with a potato masher.

  3. Add the candied lemon and orange, then return it to the cloth and tie it up tightly.

  4. Hang it up for another hour before serving.

Finish

  1. Cover with frothed cream mixed with a little sugar.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Rose + orangetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together876 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture and add richness as they set with gentle heat.
Egg whites
Add lightness and help the mixture hold its body when beaten.
Cream
Adds fat and a smooth, rich texture to the pudding.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that sets into a soft, creamy body with the eggs.
Blanched almonds
Contribute nutty flavour and body when boiled and beaten into the milk.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds to its soft setting structure.

The step that matters

Boil all together on low heat for 2 minutes. Egg proteins thicken as they heat, but too much heat can curdle them. Gentle heat and stirring keep the custard smooth.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, egg, rose, sugar, lemon, orange):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Walnutfits less well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, egg, rose, sugar, lemon, orange. 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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