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Dessert

Gelatine Pudding

A chilled dessert made with gelatin, milk, sugar, whipped cream, egg whites, nuts, pineapple, marshmallows, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 911 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Gelatine Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 15 minutes.

  2. Scald the milk and sugar together, then add to the soaked gelatine.

Fold and set

  1. Once the mixture cools and begins to jell, fold in the whipped cream and beaten egg whites.

  2. Beat the mixture together for five minutes.

  3. Add the nuts, pineapple pieces, and marshmallows.

  4. Flavor with vanilla extract.

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. Pineapple + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together911 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Nuts + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a soft, sliceable structure as it cools.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and air, giving the pudding a light, creamy texture.
Egg whites
Whipped stiff, they add air and lightness to the set mixture.
Milk
Provides liquid and richness that carries the gelatine and softens the set.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps dissolve into the scalded milk.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped cream and egg whites once the mixture begins to jell. If the gelatine has set too firm, the cream and egg whites will not blend evenly and the air already whipped into them will collapse. If it is still too runny, the mixture will be too loose to hold the added cream and egg whites in suspension.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Macadamia nutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, cream, egg, pineapple, 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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