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Dessert

Ice Pudding

A chilled custard dessert made with custard, eggs, milk, cream, and assorted candied fruits, flavored with vanilla or sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Ice Pudding

Why it works: Vanilla and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Ice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the custard the night before and let it cool.

  2. In a bowl, combine the custard, eggs, milk, sugar, and flavoring.

  3. Soak the candied fruits in curacao overnight.

Freeze

  1. Whip the cream lightly and mix it with the cold custard.

  2. Half freeze the mixture slowly in a freezer.

  3. Fold in the crushed macaroons and soaked fruits.

  4. Let it freeze for a while longer until firm.

  5. Once frozen, shape the pudding as desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Vanilla + plumtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together171 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Plum + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  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

Eggs
Add richness and help the custard set smoothly when frozen.
Cream
Whipped cream adds air and a light, creamy texture to the frozen pudding.
Milk
Adds liquid and softness to the custard base.
Macaroons
Add crunch and almond-like flavor that contrasts the smooth frozen base.

The step that matters

Half freeze the mixture slowly in a freezer.. Freezing slowly while the mixture is only partly frozen keeps ice crystals small, so the pudding stays smooth. Folding in the fruits and macaroons at this stage lets them distribute evenly before the final firm freeze.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Peppermintfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar, vanilla, cream, plum, 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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