Skip to main content
Dessert

Snow Pudding

A chilled gelatin dessert made with egg whites, yolks, milk, sugar, lemon, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in 1 pint of cold water until dissolved.

  2. Add ½ pint of boiling water.

  3. Mix in the grated lemon.

Whip and set

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Stir the beaten egg whites into the gelatine mixture after it has thickened.

  3. Beat the mixture well for 30 minutes.

  4. Pour the mixture into a mold that has been wet with cold water.

  5. Refrigerate until set.

Make the custard

  1. For the custard, combine the egg yolks, milk, and cornstarch in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over low heat, stirring until thickened.

  3. Sweeten and flavor with vanilla.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Sugar + lemontop 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the pudding its light, airy structure.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture so the pudding holds its shape when chilled.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they heat and add richness to its flavor.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard by swelling in heat, giving it a smooth body.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and custard and helps stabilize the beaten egg whites.
Lemon
Adds bright aroma and acidity from the grated zest.

The step that matters

Cook the custard over low heat, stirring constantly. Egg yolks thicken smoothly with gentle heat, but too much heat or too little stirring can scramble them and leave lumps in the custard.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

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