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Dessert

Snow Pudding

A gelatin dessert with lemon and custard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 snow

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water until soft.

  2. Add boiling water to the gelatine and stir until dissolved.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  4. Add sugar and beat together.

  5. Mix lemon juice and enough cold water into the gelatine.

  6. Let it cool.

  7. Place the bowl in a pan of ice water.

  8. When it begins to thicken, beat until light.

  9. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  10. Beat until thickened.

  11. Pour into a glass dish.

  12. Set on ice to harden.

Make the custard sauce

  1. Scald the milk for the custard sauce.

  2. Beat the egg yolks until creamy. Add sugar and mix well.

  3. Pour hot milk over the egg mixture.

  4. Stir over low heat until creamy.

  5. When cold, add vanilla.

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. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 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 light, wobbly structure as it cools.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they give the pudding its light, airy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilise the beaten whites.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the sweet pudding.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard sauce, giving it body and richness.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard sauce as they gently heat and set.

The step that matters

Beat the gelatine mixture while it is only thickening. Gelatine begins to set as it cools. Beating when it has just started to thicken traps air and makes a light foam. If it has set too firmly, it will not fold smoothly with the egg whites and the pudding will be dense.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, sauce, 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.

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