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Dessert

Snow Pudding

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

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

Prepare the gelatin

  1. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Squeeze the juice of the lemons and grate the rind.

  3. Pour boiling water over the gelatin and stir until dissolved.

  4. Add the lemon juice, grated rind, and sugar; stir well and strain through a sieve.

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the egg whites lightly.

  2. When the gelatin mixture is cool, stir in the egg whites.

  3. Beat the mixture until thick, about 1 hour.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, combine the egg yolks, milk, and sugar in a saucepan; flavor with vanilla and cook until thickened.

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. 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 mixture so it holds its light, thick body when cooled.
Egg whites
Whipped into the cooled mixture to give the pudding a light, airy texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk sauce as they cook, giving it a smooth, custard-like body.
Lemons
Provide the acidity and aroma that define the pudding's bright flavor.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce, adding richness and body when cooked with the yolks.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until thickened. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with gentle heat. Overheating can curdle the sauce, so cook slowly and stir steadily.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, 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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