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Dessert

Snow Pudding

A cold dessert made with milk, eggs, sugar, gelatin, citrus, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Snow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the snow

  1. Set 1 pint of boiling milk into a kettle of boiling water.

  2. Mix 3 tablespoons of corn starch with the boiling milk.

  3. Beat the whites of 3 eggs until stiff.

  4. Add the stiff egg whites to the mixture.

  5. Steam for 10 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the yolks of 3 eggs with 1 cup of boiled milk.

  2. Add 2/3 cup of sugar and butter.

  3. Flavor to taste.

Make the gelatine and set

  1. Pour 1 pint of boiling water over 1 large box of gelatin.

  2. Add the juice of 1 lemon and 5 oranges, along with 2 cups of sugar.

  3. When nearly cold, strain.

  4. Add the beaten egg whites.

  5. Beat well until you can pour it out.

  6. Pour into a glass or fancy mold.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Corn + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together349 recipes

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

  3. Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites beaten stiff give the pudding its light, airy, foamy structure.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture so it holds its shape when steamed and cooled.
Gelatin
Sets the juice mixture so the pudding holds its shape when turned out of the mold.
Milk
Forms the base of the snow mixture and the custard sauce, adding richness and moisture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the sugar and orange.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg whites. Egg whites must be beaten stiff and folded in gently while the mixture is nearly cold but still pourable. If too warm, the foam collapses; if too cold or set, the whites will not blend evenly and the pudding will be lumpy.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, corn, egg, sauce, sugar, butter, lemon):

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, corn, egg, sauce, sugar, butter, lemon. 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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