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Dessert

Snow Pudding

A chilled dessert made from corn starch, lemon juice, powdered sugar, eggs, milk, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 lemon snow

  1. Dissolve the corn starch in cold water.

  2. Add the dissolved corn starch to the boiling water and cook until clear.

  3. Mix the lemon juice with the powdered sugar and stir into the starch mixture.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  5. Mold the mixture and set aside.

Make the custard

  1. For the custard, heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks and corn starch together.

  3. Gradually add the hot milk to the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

  4. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook until thickened.

  5. Sweeten with sugar and flavor 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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

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

Corn starch
Thickens the liquids into a set, smooth structure when heated.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they lighten the mixture and give the snow its airy texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they cook with the milk.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, mild flavor of the pudding.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard, providing moisture and body when thickened.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until thickened, stirring constantly when adding the hot milk. Adding hot milk to yolks too quickly, or overheating them, can scramble the eggs. Constant stirring and gentle heat keep the custard smooth while the starch and yolks thicken it.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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