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Dessert

Snow Pudding

A chilled dessert made from a starch-based custard and egg yolk mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and milk 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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Wet the corn starch with cold water.

  2. Pour the wet corn starch into 1 pint of boiling water and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Add the beaten egg whites and mix well.

  4. Wet a dish with cold water and pour the mixture into the wet dish.

Make the custard

  1. In a separate pot, combine the egg yolks, sugar, sweet milk, and flour.

  2. Heat the mixture until it comes to a boil, but do not let it curdle.

  3. Add flavoring as desired.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, pour the custard around the pudding and set on ice.

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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Corn starch
Thickens the boiling water into a set, sliceable pudding.
Egg whites
Whipped into the starch mixture to give the pudding a light, airy structure.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the custard so it coats a spoon.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the eggs.
Sweet milk
Provides the liquid base of the custard and adds richness.
Flour
Helps stabilise the custard so it thickens without curdling.

The step that matters

Heating the custard. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the custard gets too hot or boils too hard, the proteins tighten and curdle. Heat gently and stir to keep it 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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