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Dessert

Nesselrode Pudding

A chilled custard pudding with almonds, candied fruit, pineapple, chestnuts, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and chestnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 130 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Nesselrode Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Make a syrup by boiling sugar and water for 5 minutes.

  2. Gradually add the syrup to the slightly beaten egg yolks.

  3. Cook the mixture over hot water until it thickens into a soft custard.

  4. Cool the custard.

  5. Add cream and vanilla extract to the custard.

Prepare the nuts and fruit

  1. Blanch the almonds.

  2. Chop the blanched almonds and candied fruit using a meat chopper.

  3. Combine the chopped nuts and fruit with the custard mixture.

Freeze and serve

  1. Freeze the mixture.

  2. Pack the frozen mixture.

  3. Let it stand for 2 to 8 hours before serving.

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. Almond + chestnuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together130 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Vanilla + pineappletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together911 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Vanilla + chestnuttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together244 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the syrup mixture into a rich custard base.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the frozen pudding a smooth texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and keeps the frozen texture soft rather than icy.
Candied fruit
Adds sweetness, chewy texture and concentrated fruit flavor.
Almonds
Add crunch and nutty flavor to the chilled custard.

The step that matters

Cook the custard over hot water until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with gentle heat. Overheating can curdle the custard into lumps, so it should be cooked slowly and stirred until it coats a spoon.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, almond, cream, vanilla, pineapple, chestnut):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, almond, cream, vanilla, pineapple, chestnut. 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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