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Dessert

Gelatine Pudding

A gelatin-based dessert made with sugar, lemon juice, eggs, and milk, set in molds and topped with custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Gelatine Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatin base

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in boiling water.

  2. Add sugar and lemon juice; let cool but not cold.

Fold and mould

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and fold into the mixture.

  2. Pour the beaten egg whites into molds.

Make the custard and serve

  1. Make a soft custard by cooking the egg yolks and additional eggs with milk.

  2. Once set, turn out the molds and pour the custard over the pudding.

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. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 mixture into a firm, wobbly structure as it cools.
Egg whites
Beaten to a stiff froth, they add lightness and airy volume to the pudding.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a soft custard that is poured over the pudding.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard, adding richness and a smooth texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and cuts the sweetness.

The step that matters

Let the gelatine mixture cool but not cold before folding in the egg whites. If the gelatine is too cold it starts to set early and becomes lumpy, so the whites will not blend evenly. If it is still too hot, the whites deflate and lose their airy structure.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk. 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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Lemon 16Fruit 9Chocolate 5Milk 3Pineapple 3 See all 48 →

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