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Dessert

Snow Pudding

A chilled gelatin dessert with a lemon custard topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in boiling water.

  2. Add sugar and lemon juice, then mix well.

  3. Beat the egg whites to a froth and fold them into the mixture.

  4. Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate until set.

Make the custard and serve

  1. For the custard, combine the egg yolks, corn-starch, and milk in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. Serve the custard alongside the 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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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, wobbly pudding as it cools.
Egg whites
Whipped to a froth, they add light, airy volume to the pudding.
Corn-starch
Thickens the custard as it heats, giving it a smooth, pourable body.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the tartness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the pudding.

The step that matters

Cook the custard over low heat, stirring constantly. Starch thickens only when heated enough, but high heat or stopping to stir can scorch the milk or cause lumps. Constant stirring over low heat keeps the custard smooth as it thickens.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, corn, 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.

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