Skip to main content
Dessert

Snow Pudding

A chilled gelatin dessert made with boiled water, milk, sugar, lemon juice, egg whites, yolks, cornstarch, and vanilla or lemon extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 gelatine base

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in boiling water.

  2. When nearly cool, add sugar and lemon juice.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  5. Fold the beaten egg whites into the gelatine mixture.

Make the custard

  1. Mix egg yolks with cornstarch.

  2. Stir the yolk-cornstarch mixture into boiling milk.

  3. Sweeten to taste.

  4. Flavor with vanilla or lemon extract.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into molds.

  2. Refrigerate until set.

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 into a soft, wobbly structure as it chills.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the pudding a light, airy texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk custard and add richness and a smooth texture.
Cornstarch
Helps thicken the yolk and milk mixture so it holds together smoothly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tart lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the pudding.

The step that matters

Fold the beaten egg whites into the gelatine mixture. Fold gently so the air trapped in the stiff egg whites is kept. Stirring hard deflates the foam, and the pudding sets denser and less light.

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.

More snow pudding recipes

Egg 5Sauce 3 See all 260 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes