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Dessert

Egg Snow Pudding

A steamed pudding made from beaten egg whites, yolks, sugar, milk, butter, flour, preserved ginger, and syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Egg Snow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Prepare a plain mold and coat it with 1 tablespoon of sugar, melting it over heat until brown.

Make the snow

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gently add 1 small tablespoon of soft sugar and a few drops of flavoring.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the prepared mold and cover with buttered paper.

  3. Place the mold in a saucepan with enough water to float it, cover, and steam gently for 45 minutes.

Make the custard

  1. In another saucepan, boil the milk and butter together while stirring continuously.

  2. Rapidly stir in the flour until smooth and well-cooked, then let it cool for 10 minutes.

  3. Stir in the egg yolks one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition.

  4. Add the preserved ginger and syrup, mixing well.

  5. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites last.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered and sugared pudding mold and steam gently for 1 hour.

  2. Serve with Bose Sauce or Syrup Sauce.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the pudding its light, airy structure.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter mixture into a smooth base.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the custard, softening its texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and, melted on the mold, forms a brown coating.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites last. Beaten egg whites hold air in a fragile foam. Stirring them vigorously deflates it, making the pudding dense instead of light. Folding with a wide motion keeps the air trapped so the pudding rises and stays tender when steamed.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, butter, flour, syrup. 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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