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Dessert

Snow Pudding

A gelatin-based custard dessert made with eggs, sugar, milk, and corn starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Snow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Set the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in ½ cup cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Pour 1½ cups boiling water over the soaked gelatine and stir until dissolved.

  3. Add 4 tablespoons cold water and 2 cups sugar to the gelatine mixture and let it cool until it begins to thicken.

  4. Beat the whites of 4 eggs to a stiff froth and fold into the gelatine mixture.

Make the custard

  1. In a separate bowl, beat 4 eggs with ¾ cup sugar and a pinch of salt.

  2. Dissolve ½ tablespoon corn starch in a little cold milk, then mix with the boiling milk.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into the boiling milk until the custard thickens.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool before serving.

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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 mixture as it cools, giving the pudding its firm, wobbly body.
Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth, they add airy lightness to the gelatine mixture.
Eggs
Their proteins set when heated, thickening the custard.
Corn starch
Swells when heated with liquid, thickening the custard further.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to both the gelatine mixture and the custard.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the boiling milk. Egg proteins set quickly when they meet very hot liquid, so constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and keeps the custard smooth instead of lumpy or scrambled.

“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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