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Dessert

Frozen Pudding

A chilled dessert made from milk, sugar, flour, eggs, gelatin, cream, candied cherries, and sherry wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Gelatin and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Frozen Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Bring the milk to a boil.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs, flour, and 1 cup of sugar together.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into the boiling milk and cook for 20 minutes.

  4. Soak the gelatin in cold water, then add it to the mixture and let it cool.

Finish and freeze

  1. Once cool, add the sherry wine, remaining sugar, and cream.

  2. Freeze for 10 minutes, then add the candied cherries and finish freezing.

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. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Set the custard as they cook and thicken the milk mixture.
Flour
Thickens the custard so it holds body after freezing.
Gelatin
Gives the frozen pudding a firm, stable set that resists melting.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother, creamier texture.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the pudding and softens the texture by lowering the freezing point.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the boiling milk. Eggs can scramble if added to very hot liquid without enough stirring. Stirring while pouring, then cooking gently, keeps the custard smooth and lets the flour and eggs thicken evenly.

“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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