Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Egg Snow Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mold
Preheat a saucepan with enough water to float a plain mold.
In a small saucepan, melt 1 tablespoon of sugar over low heat until it turns brown like coffee, then coat the inside of the mold with it.
Make and steam the pudding
Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold in 1 tablespoon of soft sugar and a few drops of flavoring.
Pour the egg mixture into the prepared mold and cover with buttered paper.
Place the mold in the saucepan and cover with a lid, then steam gently for 45 minutes.
Serve
Carefully turn out the pudding onto a plate.
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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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 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
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a foam that traps air, giving the pudding its light, set structure.
- Sugar
- Caramelized to coat the mold and sweeten the light egg foam.
The step that matters
Whipping and folding the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air bubbles that lift and set the pudding. Overbeaten whites turn grainy and dry, and heavy stirring collapses the foam.
“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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