Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Snow Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pudding
Boil the milk in a saucepan.
In a small bowl, mix cornstarch with a little cold milk until smooth.
Stir the cornstarch mixture, salt, and sugar into the boiling milk.
Once thickened, remove from heat and fold in the beaten egg whites.
Pour the mixture into a mold and let it set.
Make the custard
For the custard, beat the egg yolks with sugar and salt.
Add the sweet milk and cook in a double boiler until creamy.
Add flavoring and serve the custard ice cold alongside the pudding.
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.
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Milk
- Forms the body of the pudding and provides the liquid that thickens.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the pudding its set body.
- Egg whites
- Whipped and folded in, they add lightness and an airy, snowy texture.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the custard, thickening it gently and adding richness and color.
- Sugar
- Sweetens both the pudding and the custard.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites must be beaten to soft peaks and folded gently into the thickened mixture. Overmixing deflates the foam, and adding them to mixture that is too hot can cook them unevenly, so the pudding loses its light texture.
“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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