Skip to main content
Dessert

Iced Pudding

A chilled almond pudding made from Jordan and bitter almonds, powdered sugar, egg yolks, and boiled cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Iced Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Parboil the Jordan and bitter almonds.

  2. Remove the skins from the almonds.

  3. Beat the almonds into a paste with the powdered sugar.

Make the custard

  1. Add the egg yolks and boiled cream.

  2. Stir the mixture over low heat for a few minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Freeze and serve

  1. Pour the strained mixture into a freezing pot.

  2. Use a scraper to work the mixture as it freezes.

  3. Once firm, fill a mold.

  4. Cover the mold.

  5. Immerse the mold in ice until 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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 cream and add richness and a smooth, set texture.
Jordan almonds
Provide the main almond flavour and body as a paste.
Bitter almonds
Add a stronger, sharper almond aroma to the paste.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the almond paste and blends smoothly into the mixture.
Boiled cream
Supplies fat and moisture, giving the pudding its creamy body.

The step that matters

Use a scraper to work the mixture as it freezes. Constant scraping breaks up ice crystals as they form, keeping the pudding smooth and creamy rather than icy and grainy.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Pecansfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cream. 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.

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes