Why it works: Lemon and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Snow Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the gelatine
Soak the gelatine in 1 cup of cold water for 10 minutes.
Heat the gelatine on the stove, stirring until dissolved.
Let the gelatine cool.
Beat the cooled gelatine until frothy.
Whip and set
Beat the egg whites until frothy.
Add sugar and lemon flavoring to the egg whites.
Mix the gelatine with the egg white mixture.
Pour the mixture into small cups that have been wet with water.
Set the cups aside to cool and harden.
Make the custard and serve
Make a soft custard with the egg yolks and milk.
Once the pudding is cold, turn it out onto a plate.
Pour the custard over the pudding before serving.
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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Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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 into a firm, wobbly structure as it cools.
- Egg whites
- Beaten to foam, they give the pudding its light, airy texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilize the beaten egg white foam.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the milk into a soft custard served over the pudding.
The step that matters
Cooling the gelatine before adding it to the egg whites. Gelatine that is still hot can deflate the beaten egg white foam and cause it to lose volume. Letting it cool until it is only warm and slightly thickened keeps the foam light and lets the gelatine set the pudding evenly.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Raisinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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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