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Dessert

Snow Pudding

A lemon gelatin dessert made with water, gelatin, lemon rind, sugar, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Snow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flavouring

  1. Rub the sugar onto the rind of the lemon.

Make the mixture

  1. Place the lemon rind in a pan with water and gelatin, and stir until dissolved.

  2. Add the lemon juice, strain the mixture, and let it cool.

Whip and set

  1. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then fold them into the mixture.

  2. Beat the mixture until thick and frothy, then pour it into a wet mold.

  3. Serve with custard.

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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 wobbly, firm structure as it cools.
Egg whites
Whisked into foam, they lighten the texture and add airy volume.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the pudding and draws oil from the lemon rind for flavour.
Lemon
Provides acidity and aroma from its juice and rind.

The step that matters

Beating the mixture until thick and frothy. The mixture must be cool and just starting to thicken before the whipped whites are folded in and it is poured. If it is too warm, the foam collapses; if it has set too far, it will not fill the mold smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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