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Dessert

Crystal Frozen Pudding

A gelatin-based frozen dessert flavored with lemon, cinnamon, sherry, rum, maraschino, cream, almonds, cherries, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Crystal Frozen Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lemon base

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. In 1 quart of boiling water, add the rinds of the lemons and the cinnamon; let boil.

  3. Add the sugar and pour the boiling mixture over the gelatine, stirring until dissolved.

  4. Strain and add the sherry, a dash of rum, maraschino, and lemon juice; adjust sweetness if needed.

  5. Set aside to congeal to a thick custard consistency.

Freeze and pack

  1. Whip the cream until stiff and fold it into the jelly mixture.

  2. Freeze the mixture.

  3. When nearly frozen, add the cherries, sliced citron, and chopped almonds.

  4. Freeze well and pack.

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. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sherry + rumtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable body that holds its shape when frozen.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture once whipped and folded in.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemons
Provide the main citrus flavour and acidity, from both rinds and juice.
Almonds
Add crunch and a contrasting nutty texture to the frozen mass.

The step that matters

Set the base to a thick custard consistency before folding in the cream. Gelatine sets as it cools, so if the base is still runny when the whipped cream is folded in, the cream deflates and the mixture will not hold a uniform, airy texture after freezing.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, sugar, sherry, rum, cream, almond):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, sugar, sherry, rum, cream, almond. 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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