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Dessert

Snow Pudding

A cold dessert made with milk, cornstarch, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 pudding

  1. Heat 1 pint of milk in a kettle of water.

  2. Dissolve 2 tablespoons of cornstarch in a little cold milk and add to the heated milk.

  3. Stir in 3 tablespoons of sugar.

  4. Beat 3 egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  5. Pour into a mold and let cool.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, combine 1 pint of milk, 3 tablespoons of sugar, and the yolks of 3 eggs in a double boiler.

  2. Thin the mixture with a little cold milk, add 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and a pinch of salt, and cook until thickened.

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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the pudding its light, airy structure.
Cornstarch
Thickens the hot milk as its starch granules swell, giving the pudding body when set.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce gently as they cook and add richness and a smooth, custardy texture.
Milk
Forms the base of both the pudding and the sauce, providing moisture and body.

The step that matters

Cooking the sauce until thickened. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can curdle or scramble if overheated. Cooking gently over a double boiler and stirring keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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