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Dessert

Snow Pudding

A gelatin dessert made with sugar, egg whites, milk, and custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,800 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Snow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Add boiling water and let it cool.

  3. Stir in sugar and beaten egg whites until very stiff.

  4. Pour the mixture into molds.

Make the custard and serve

  1. Make a custard by heating milk and whisking in egg yolks until thick.

  2. Serve the pudding with custard poured over it.

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. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and milk 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid so the pudding holds its shape when cooled.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the pudding its light, airy texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a custard through gentle heating and whisking.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard, adding richness and body.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Whisking egg yolks into the hot milk. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently; if the milk is too hot or heated too fast, the yolks can scramble and curdle instead of forming a smooth custard. Keep the heat moderate and whisk constantly.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Cocoafits about as well
  4. Walnutfits about as well

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