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Dessert

Snow Pudding

A chilled gelatin dessert made with lemon, sugar, egg whites, and a wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Snow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Pour boiling water over the gelatine in a bowl.

  2. Add lemon juice and sugar.

  3. Stir until nearly cold.

  4. Strain the mixture.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  6. Beat everything together well.

  7. Pour into a wet mold.

  8. Refrigerate until set.

Make the wine sauce

  1. Cream together butter, powdered sugar, and corn starch.

  2. Gradually add boiling water while stirring constantly.

  3. Beat the egg yolks with wine and mix into the sauce.

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

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

  2. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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 as it chills.
Egg whites
Whipped into the mixture, they add air and a light, fluffy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the tartness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavour to the pudding.
Corn starch
Thickens the sauce so it becomes smooth and pourable.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth body to the wine sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the gelatine until nearly cold before folding in the egg whites. If the gelatine is still hot, it will melt and deflate the beaten egg whites. Cooling it until nearly set keeps the foam stable and gives a light, airy pudding.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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