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Dessert

Gelatine Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Gelatine Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatine base

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in boiling water.

  2. Add sugar and lemon juice.

  3. Let cool but not cold.

  4. Beat the egg whites to stiff froth.

  5. Fold the beaten egg whites into the gelatine mixture.

Make the custard

  1. Make a soft custard by cooking the egg yolks and additional eggs with milk.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the egg whites into molds.

  2. Chill the molds.

  3. Unmold the gelatine pudding.

  4. Pour custard over the gelatine 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. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 firm, sliceable pudding.
Egg whites
Whipped to a foam, they lighten the pudding and add airy texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a soft custard and add richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the gelatine base.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sugar.
Milk
Forms the body of the custard, adding creaminess.

The step that matters

Fold the egg whites in while the gelatine is cool but not cold. If the gelatine is still too hot, it will deflate the beaten egg whites. If it is already cold, it begins to set in lumps before the whites are evenly folded in, so the foam does not blend smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk. 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 gelatin pudding recipes

Lemon 16Fruit 9Chocolate 5Milk 3Pineapple 3 See all 48 →

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