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Gelatine Pudding

A chilled gelatin dessert flavored with lemon and topped with beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Gelatine Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Dissolve the gelatine

  1. Place the gelatine in a quart cup.

  2. Pour the cold water over the gelatine.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 5 minutes.

  4. Add the boiling water.

  5. Stir until the gelatine is dissolved.

  6. If the gelatine is not dissolved, let it sit on the back of the stove for 10 minutes.

Flavour and strain

  1. Remove the mixture from heat.

  2. Add the sugar.

  3. When the mixture is lukewarm, add the juice of the lemons.

  4. Strain the mixture to remove seeds.

  5. If the mixture is less than 1½ cups, add cold water to reach that measurement.

  6. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a large pitcher or bowl.

Whip and set

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Stir the beaten egg whites into the gelatine mixture, beating well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a glass serving dish.

  4. Refrigerate the dish overnight.

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

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add airy lightness and a fluffy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright lemon flavour to offset the sweetness.

The step that matters

Stirring the beaten egg whites into the gelatine. The gelatine must be lukewarm, not setting, so the whites fold in smoothly without deflating. If it has already firmed up, lumps form and the airy foam collapses.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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