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Dessert

Snow Pudding

A gelatin-based dessert made with sugar, lemon or sherry, eggs, milk, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Snow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the snow pudding

  1. Soak ½ box gelatine in ½ cup cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Dissolve the gelatine in 1 pint boiling water.

  3. Add 1½ cups sugar and the juice of 2 lemons or ⅓ cup Sherry wine.

  4. Strain the mixture and let it cool until thick.

  5. Beat the mixture with an egg beater until frothy.

  6. Stir in the beaten whites of 4 eggs.

  7. Dip a pudding mold in cold water, fill it with the mixture, and chill.

Make the custard

  1. To make the custard, combine the yolks of 4 eggs, 1 pint milk, and ¼ cup sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened, then flavor with vanilla.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 soft, sliceable pudding that holds its shape.
Eggs
Whites are beaten to add airy foam and lightness; yolks thicken the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and softens the set, balancing the lemon or Sherry.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard, providing richness and a smooth texture when thickened.

The step that matters

Cook the custard over low heat, stirring constantly. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated. Gentle heat and constant stirring let the custard thicken smoothly as the proteins set slowly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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