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 ↓
Iced Pudding a LA Shakspeare
Ingredients
Directions
Make the caramel
In a saucepan, combine 4 ounces of sugar, cinnamon, lemon rind, and ½ cup of water; boil until dark brown, then dilute with ½ cup of water and strain.
Make and freeze the base
In a bowl, mix the cream, egg yolks, 8 ounces of sugar, caramel essence, and curaçao.
Freeze the mixture until firm.
Finish and serve
Fold in the dried fruits and whipped cream.
Mold the ice and embed it in rough ice and salt.
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.
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Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,437 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Cinnamon + peartop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together600 recipes
Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
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Cinnamon + pistachiotop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together201 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Lemon + pistachiotop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together431 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and help the base set smooth and creamy when frozen.
- Cream
- Provides fat and body, giving the frozen pudding a rich, soft texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the base and lowers its freezing point, keeping the ice from freezing rock-hard.
- Whipped double cream
- Adds air and lightness, softening the texture of the frozen dessert.
- Dried fruits
- Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit flavour throughout the frozen pudding.
The step that matters
Boil the caramel until dark brown. Sugar darkens and develops bitter, toasted flavours as it caramelises; stopping too early gives a weak flavour, while overcooking can make it bitter. Diluting with water carefully controls the syrup's strength.
Swap the pear
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg, sugar, cinnamon, lemon, orange, pistachio):
- Vanillafits better
- Limefits better
- Figfits better
- Pearthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, sugar, cinnamon, lemon, orange, pistachio. 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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