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Dessert

Snow Pudding

A light, sweet pudding made with cornstarch, boiling water, sugar, salt, egg whites, and a buttery yolk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Snow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Dissolve the cornstarch in a little cold water.

  2. Pour the boiling water over the cornstarch mixture, then add the sugar and salt.

  3. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold them into the mixture.

  4. Steam over a tea kettle for 10 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, combine the egg yolks, sugar, milk, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the sauce and add flavoring as desired.

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

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

  2. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Milk + walnuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the mixture so the pudding sets into a soft, sliceable form.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they give the pudding its light, airy, snowy texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and thicken it as they cook, adding richness and body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding creaminess and body.
Butter
Adds fat to the sauce, contributing richness and a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiff egg whites deflate easily when stirred vigorously. Fold gently so the air bubbles stay trapped, which keeps the pudding light and airy.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

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