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Dessert

Snow and Ice Pudding

A gelatin-based pudding with a custard layer made from milk, eggs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Snow and Ice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in boiling water.

  2. Add sugar and lemon juice.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Let it cool.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk, eggs, corn starch, sugar, and salt to make a soft custard.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cut the cooled jelly into small squares.

  2. Place the squares in a glass dish.

  3. Pour the custard over the jelly before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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 jelly once dissolved and cooled.
Eggs
Thicken the milk into a soft custard as they set with gentle heat.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet jelly and balances its sugar.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard so it pours thickly over the jelly without becoming stiff.
Milk
Gives the custard its body, richness and creamy flavour.

The step that matters

Make the soft custard gently. Eggs thicken milk only up to a point; too much heat makes them scramble or curdle. Stirring over moderate heat and keeping the custard below a simmer gives a smooth, pourable result.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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