Skip to main content
Dessert

Snow Pudding

A chilled gelatin dessert with lemon custard and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Snow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 10 minutes.

  2. Add boiling water, lemon juice, and powdered sugar; stir and let it stand over low heat for a few moments.

  3. Strain through a flannel bag into a pudding dish and set aside to cool.

Make the custard

  1. In a separate bowl, make a custard with the egg yolks and corn starch, sweetening to taste.

  2. Cook the custard in a tin pail set in boiling water, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat, add vanilla extract, and let it cool partially.

  4. Once cool, pour the custard over the jelly in the dish.

Top and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites with a little sugar until stiff, then spread over the custard.

  2. Serve chilled.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  4. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 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 lemon liquid into a firm, wobbly jelly layer.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and a smooth texture.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard so it holds its shape when cooled.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms the light, airy topping.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the jelly.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard in the boiling-water bath. Stirring constantly keeps the egg yolks from scrambling while the starch thickens the custard. Overheating or stopping the stirring can leave lumps or a grainy texture.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

More snow pudding recipes

Egg 5Sauce 3 See all 260 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes