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Dessert

Snow Pudding

A gelatin-based pudding mixed with egg whites and custard, served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Gelatin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Snow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatin base

  1. Dissolve the gelatin in 1 pint of cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. Add 1 pint of boiling water and let it cool.

  3. Mix in 2 cups of sugar and the beaten egg whites.

  4. Flavor with almond or vanilla extract and beat until very stiff.

  5. Pour the mixture into molds.

Make the custard and serve

  1. Make a custard by cooking the egg yolks with 1 quart of milk.

  2. Pour the custard over the pudding when served.

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 + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Gelatin
Sets the liquid so the pudding holds its shape when unmolded.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiff foam, they give the pudding its light, airy texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a custard that is poured over the pudding.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard, adding richness and a smooth texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds body to the gelatin mixture.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until very stiff. Egg whites must be beaten enough to hold stiff peaks; under-beaten whites collapse, leaving the pudding dense instead of light and airy. Whites also deflate if fat or yolk gets into the bowl.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Nutsfits less well

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