Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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
Soak the gelatine in cold water.
Add the sugar to the soaked gelatine.
When the gelatine is soft, stir in the boiling water.
Add the juice of one lemon and mix well.
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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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon 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, sliceable pudding structure.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity and bright flavour to the mild, sweet base.
The step that matters
Soften the gelatine fully before adding the boiling water. Gelatine must hydrate in cold water before hot water is added, so it dissolves evenly. Undissolved granules leave lumps and an uneven set in the finished pudding.
“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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