Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Snow Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cover the bottom of a baking dish with preserves.
Make the pudding
In a bowl, mix milk, bread crumbs, lemon rind, egg yolks, butter, and sugar until combined.
Pour the mixture over the preserves and bake for 1 hour.
Top and serve
Beat the egg whites with a little sifted sugar until stiff peaks form.
Spread the beaten egg whites over the pudding just before removing it from the oven.
Return to the oven for a few minutes to brown the top.
Serve cold.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich the custard, while beaten whites form the light snow topping.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb the milk and give the pudding body while it bakes.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that sets with the eggs into a soft custard.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a tender texture to the pudding.
- Preserves
- Form a fruity layer at the bottom that becomes the base when inverted.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whites that are underbeaten will not hold their shape and can weep or sink into the pudding, while overbeaten whites turn dry and grainy. Stiff peaks trap air that expands and sets lightly in the oven, giving the snowy topping its airy texture.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, egg, butter, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Peachfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, egg, butter, sugar. 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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