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Dessert

Snow Pudding

A gelatin dessert made with water, egg whites, sugar, lemon juice, and flavored with sweetened cream, wine, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Snow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in 1 pint of water.

  2. Whip the egg whites until frothy.

Make the pudding

  1. Pour boiling water over the dissolved gelatin.

  2. Add the sugar and lemon juice.

  3. Beat until thickened.

  4. Pour into a bowl.

Serve

  1. Serve with sweetened cream seasoned with wine and nutmeg.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gelatin
Provides the setting power that gives the pudding its body and holds its shape.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they add lightness and an airy, snowy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavor that cuts through the sweetness.

The step that matters

Beat until thickened. Gelatin begins to set as the mixture cools, so beating must happen while it is still soft enough to thicken into a light, airy mass rather than setting in lumps or strands.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (gelatin, egg, sugar, cream, wine, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, egg, sugar, cream, wine, nutmeg. 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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