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Dessert

Frozen Pudding

A chilled dessert made from milk, sugar, flour, eggs, gelatin, cream, fruit juice, and candied fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water to cover for 2 hours.

  2. Boil the milk.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat together the sugar, flour, and eggs.

Make the custard

  1. Cook the mixture in the boiling milk for 20 minutes.

  2. Just before removing from heat, gradually add the remaining sugar, fruit juice, and cream.

  3. Cool the mixture, then freeze for 10 minutes.

  4. Add the candied fruit and freeze until firmer.

Mold and serve

  1. Pack into a tin mold and freeze until hard.

  2. To serve, turn out onto a dish and surround with whipped cream.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Gelatin
Soaked first to help the frozen dessert set firm and hold its shape.
Eggs
Thicken the custard as they cook, giving the base body and richness.
Flour
Helps thicken the custard so it holds together when frozen.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and keeps the frozen texture softer rather than rock hard.
Cream
Adds fat, making the frozen dessert smoother and creamier.
Candied fruit
Adds concentrated sweetness and chewy pieces throughout the frozen dessert.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard in the boiling milk. The eggs and flour thicken the mixture as they cook. If the heat is too high or the mixture is left unstirred, the eggs can curdle or scramble, leaving a grainy texture in the finished dessert.

“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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