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Dessert

Snow Pudding

A chilled gelatin dessert made with gelatine, sugar, lemon, egg whites, custard, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Snow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in boiling water.

  2. When almost cold, add sugar, lemon juice, and lemon extract.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Add the beaten egg whites.

  5. Beat everything together thoroughly.

  6. Pour into a mold as it begins to thicken.

Make the custard

  1. For the custard, stir corn starch into boiling milk.

  2. Add the egg yolks.

  3. Sweeten to taste.

  4. Flavor the custard with vanilla.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture into a light, wobbly structure as it cools.
Egg whites
Whipped into the mixture to add a light, airy, foamy texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness to its texture.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk so the custard becomes smooth and body-rich.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tart lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavour that cuts the sweetness.

The step that matters

Pour into a mold as it begins to thicken. If the mixture is poured too early it stays runny and won't hold shape; if left too late it sets unevenly and the airy egg whites can lose their lift when folded in. Pouring at the thickening stage gives a light, set pudding.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, corn, milk, vanilla. 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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