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Dessert

Hokey Pokey

A gelatin dessert made with milk, eggs, sugar, lemon rind, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Hokey Pokey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Dissolve gelatine in milk or water.

  2. In a clean basin, combine milk, beaten eggs, sugar, lemon rind, and salt.

Cook and cool

  1. Place on moderate heat and stir constantly until it begins to thicken.

  2. Remove from heat and pour into an earthen pan.

  3. Continue stirring until nearly cold.

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 + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

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 as it cools, giving the finished dish a firm body.
Eggs
Thicken the custard base as they heat and set, giving it structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken and carries the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and softens its texture as it sets.
Lemon rind
Adds a bright citrus aroma to the custard.

The step that matters

Stir constantly while heating until it begins to thicken. Egg proteins set when heated, so the mixture can curdle or scorch on the base if heat is uneven. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and keeps the custard smooth as it thickens.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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