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Dessert

Snow Pudding

A steamed pudding made with cornstarch, egg whites, milk, yolks, sugar, butter, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Snow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Mix cornstarch with a little water until smooth in a small bowl.

  2. Add boiling water to the cornstarch mixture and stir the mixture well.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  4. Steam the mixture for 15 minutes.

  5. Flavor the steamed mixture with vanilla.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine milk, egg yolks, sugar, and butter in a saucepan for the sauce.

  2. Cook the sauce over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened.

  3. Remove the sauce from heat and flavor it with vanilla.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the boiling water into a soft, set pudding structure.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in, they lighten the pudding and give it a airy, snowy texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and thicken it as they cook, adding richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding creaminess.
Sugar
Sweetens both the pudding and the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce over medium heat, stirring constantly. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated or left unstirred. Constant stirring over moderate heat lets the sauce thicken smoothly as the yolk proteins set gradually.

“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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