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Dessert

Gelatine Pudding

A chilled gelatin dessert made with sugar, lemon juice, and 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, pour the cold water over it, and let stand for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the boiling water and stir until the gelatine is dissolved; if not dissolved, let sit on the back of the stove for 10 minutes.

Flavour and strain

  1. Remove from heat, add the sugar, and when lukewarm add the juice of the lemons; strain to remove seeds.

  2. If the mixture is less than 1½ cups, add cold water to reach that measurement; strain through a fine sieve into a large pitcher or bowl.

Fold and set

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, then stir them into the gelatine mixture, beating well.

  2. Pour into a glass serving dish and refrigerate overnight; the egg whites will rise and settle on top.

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 wobbly, sliceable structure as it cools.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add airy lightness and form a foam layer on top.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemons
Provide tart acidity and citrus aroma that cut through the sweetness.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatine fully. Gelatine only sets when its granules are completely hydrated and dissolved in hot liquid. Undissolved specks left in the mixture will not firm up, leaving a grainy or uneven set, so the mixture should be stirred until clear before the other ingredients are added.

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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