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Dessert

Snow Pudding

A chilled dessert made with boiling water, cornstarch, sugar, vanilla, eggs, milk, butter, and optional chocolate sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 cornstarch in cold water.

  2. Combine boiling water, dissolved cornstarch, salt, sugar, and vanilla in a saucepan.

  3. Cook the mixture until it becomes transparent.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Gently stir the stiff egg whites into the boiling cornstarch mixture.

  5. Pour the mixture into a wet mold and let it set.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine milk, beaten egg yolks, sugar, and butter in a double boiler for the sauce.

  2. Cook the sauce until thick, stirring frequently.

  3. If using chocolate, add it with water and cook until melted.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  5. Vanilla + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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
Beaten until stiff, they trap air and give the pudding its light, airy structure.
Cornstarch
Thickens the boiling liquid into a set, sliceable pudding as it cooks and gelatinizes.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they cook gently and add richness and color.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and adds richness and body.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiff whites hold the foam's air, so they should be stirred in gently rather than beaten or stirred vigorously. Overmixing deflates the foam and the pudding loses its light texture.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Cocoafits better
  4. Walnutthe original

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