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Dessert

Snow Pudding

A gelatin dessert with lemon, sugar, egg whites, custard, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Gelatin and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,628 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Snow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the snow layer

  1. Whip the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Wet the cornstarch in a little water.

  3. Pour the wet cornstarch into the boiling water along with the salt.

  4. Steam the mixture for 15 minutes.

  5. Soak the gelatin in a little water.

  6. Add the soaked gelatin to the lemon juice and sugar.

  7. Add the boiling water to the gelatin mixture.

  8. Strain the mixture and pour into a dish to set.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk with the second portion of gelatin.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar.

  3. Add the beaten yolks to the milk mixture.

  4. Stir until almost cold.

  5. Add the cream to the mixture.

  6. Strain the custard.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the custard over the set jelly.

  2. Top with whipped cream or the whipped egg whites.

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. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth, they give the light, airy foam of the snow layer.
Cornstarch
Thickens the boiling water mixture so it sets into a soft, sliceable body.
Gelatin
Sets the lemon and sugar mixture and the milk custard into firm, wobbly layers.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and add richness and a smooth, thick texture.
Cream
Adds fat to the custard, making it richer and softer on the palate.
Lemon juice
Provides acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar in the jelly layer.

The step that matters

Stir the custard until almost cold before adding the cream. Adding hot custard to cream or setting gelatin too early can cause curdling or uneven setting; cooling gently keeps the custard smooth and lets the gelatin begin to thicken evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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