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Dessert

Gelatine Pudding

A chilled dessert made with eggs, milk, sugar, lemon or vanilla, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Gelatine Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in a little cold water for a few minutes.

  2. Dissolve the soaked gelatine in ¾ cup of boiling water.

Make the custard

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together.

  2. Heat the milk and stir in the egg yolk mixture until combined.

Set the pudding

  1. Once the mixture is cool, add the dissolved gelatine and the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into molds and refrigerate until set.

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 + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites, beaten stiff, give the pudding a light, airy texture.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture into a wobbly, sliceable pudding as it cools.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds richness and body.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilise the beaten egg yolks.

The step that matters

Add the gelatine to the cooled mixture. Gelatine begins to set as it cools, so if the custard is still hot it may set unevenly or lose its airy texture when the stiffly beaten egg whites are folded in. Letting the mixture cool first keeps the whites from deflating and helps the pudding set smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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