Snow Pudding with Light Custard Sauce
Served with custard sauce, this light and refreshing snow pudding recipe is perfect for any occasion, but it’s especially fun to make in winter.
By Yankee Magazine|Jul 22 2022|
Coffee By Design | Portland, Maine
Photo Credit : Katherine KeenanServed with custard sauce, this light and refreshing snow pudding recipe is perfect for any occasion, but it’s especially fun to make in winter.
Yield:
12 servingsIngredients
2 packages unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup lemon juice (approximately 2 lemons)
2 cups sugar
2 cups boiling water
5 egg whites
Instructions
Dissolve unflavored gelatin in cold water. Add lemon juice, sugar, boiling water. Let gel until syrupy and just starting to set, approximately 45 minutes.
Beat egg whites until they form soft peaks, then beat in the gelatin until the mixture is really fluffy and white, approximately 5 minutes. Rinse a 1-1/2- to 2-quart mold with cold water and turn the pudding into it. Chill until firm, preferably overnight, then unmold onto a serving platter and serve with Light Custard Sauce.
Unfortunately, you don’t mention how many egg whites are required. My Norwigian grandmother mades this recipe at Christmas. We used 4 egg whites, but also added 2 teaspoons lemon rasp. The combination of sour gelatin and sweet egg whites is what makes this recipe special and ideal after a heavy holiday meal.
I added the lemon zest from the lemons to it. My grandma made this for Sunday dessert often. My granfather called it wind pudding with air sauce. We all love it!
I would like to have to have a recipe for Snow Pudding that my grandmother made when I was very small. Because of that fact I never had any of it. My oldest sister told me how good it was but we can’t find the right recipe. All my sister can tell me about it is—it’s clear and has little white specks thru-out. I assume that’s where the name came from. I would very much appreciate any and all help from readers. Eunice Crites
I want that one, too! My mother went on and on about her grandmother’s recipe for it, and made one similar — but said it wasn’t as good.
The pudding was white, light, and full of frothy bubbles (though it was gelatin-like), which fizzed in the mouth with each bite. And it was the custard sauce that was flavored with lemon (or more lemon). She only made it once, because she said it wasn’t enough like her grandmother’s.
it has been so long since anyone has posted an interest in Snow Pudding, that I hope someone reads this and truly gives it many attempts til they get it right.
Here at a few of the key steps where it can go wrong;
1) allow a whole day to make it
2) remember, snow pudding has 2 separate parts: (a) the ‘snow’ (whipped partially gelled lemon gelatine, into which you fold egg whites beaten to peaks).
Commonest mistake here is having the gelatin and egg whites separate and get watery. Solution: use more gelatin than recipe calls for AND get the bowl you’ll pour it into REALLY COLD first, by keeping in the freezer a few hours – but keep it dry on the inside (any ice crystals will melt and make the Snow watery so it will separate).
Allow the lemon gelatin to get a little more congealed, so it falls off a big mixing spoon in gelatinized sheets. That makes it whip well. If you let it gel too long, that’s fatal, and impossible to rescue because the jello’s too stiff and hard. Start over.
(3) slightly UNDER sugar-ize the Snow. It will contrast way better with that custard sauce, which will be sweeter. If the Snow and the Custard are equal in sweetness, that’s boring. Don’t freeze the Snow. Just pour or spoon the Snow into that frozen bowl, and put in refrigerator. It will set up in 4 hours and will hold up very well til the next day.
(4) Custard sauce: there’s only one big danger point: DONT LET THE CUSTARD BOIL!! Or OverHEAT! That makes the egg and liquid separate with a million little lumps floating in a disgusting watery liquid.
My trick : SCALD the milk first, but don’t let it boil. The egg-yolk plus sugar solution, DRIZZLE it into the scalded milk.
Be sure you placed your scalded milk pot into a double boiler before drizzling in the egg yolk solution, to eliminate the chance that the resulting custard will boil and cause those million little coagulated lumps.
The best way to know if youve cooked the custard in the double boiler ENOUGH but NOT TOO MUCH is to watch for that point when the custard COATS the spoon as it drips off (like cream), It Is under-done if the custard just instantly clears off the spoon like skim milk.
My favorite additions are:
(1) to the Snow: nothing. Simple is perfect.
(2) to the custard; AFTER it’s off the stove, – vanilla, almond, and (minimal) lemon zest. Also, I might add a bit more sugar to taste.
Our grandmother from Waterford, Ireland brought this recipe to Chicago in1905.
We have served it every single year (Thanksgiving or Christmas).
Please, could a Snow Pudding aficionado tell me how Snow Pudding entered YOUR family tradition? My grandmother , Hannah Dunphy-Carrolll late of Mooncoin, Waterford Ireland, and my darling Aunt Nora Carroll would enjoy that immensely.
My grandmother brought her recipe from Sweden! Had it at Christmas. I never thought of freezing the bowl 1st, But had placed bowl into snow drifts or pans of ice. I did not want the settling of gel, hope this trick keeps it up and sets before it does. I always have people asking for it, but takes Time!
The older versions of the Joy of Cooking, pre-1964, have a recipe for snow pudding. We often had it while growing up, and loved it.
My grandmother from Boston made it often when I was a kid and I haven’t had it since about 1964. I will attempt it sometime soon. I loved it!
I started eating snow pudding as a child. My mother got it from one of the very early versions of Joy of Cooking from the 1930’s that had belonged to my grandmother. She compared that recipe to one she found in a French cookbook (Neufs aux Neige, or Eggs in Snow, if I can recall the French.) This looks like a great variant. I love the message from Ann from August, 2018, with the many cautions about what can go wrong. Don’t let that scare you away, I’ve never had it go wrong. I suppose the custard sauce might be a little dicey if you haven’t made it before. Ann mentions that the custards should coat the spoon. True. I watch the very edges of the pan it’s cooking in — when you begin to see very small bubbles, right on the edges, it’s getting close. All of a sudden you’ll see it change color slightly — test right then with the spoon, and you’ll have it.
I remember having this as a little girl of five and being delighted. Oddly it was in the middle of a very hot summer in Australia
I also loved it when my mother (from Ballinasloe, Ireland) made it . She also had a variation called Prune Whip – made exactly the same way incorporating finely chopped prunes (before Kitchenaid) into the beaten egg whites. We did have a Mixmaster though. Great memories provoked by N.E. Today and Yankee Magazine.
When my grandmother made this recipe, she had two versions: Snow Pudding, when the custard is spooned over the snow; and Floating Island, when the Snow floated in a pool of Custard.
I sent you a comment before Christmas and never heard back from you. Not a good thing. I wanted to now print out the snow pudding recipe and don’t see any to do that. I know when I sent you a comment I was on my Lap top which is Windows ten and was difficult to try and print out your recipes. Is there an easier way to print out the recipes.
Thanks.
Gary
Hi Gary. Sorry we missed your comment! For a printer-friendly version of this recipe, you can click the green box with the printer icon in it below the recipe title. Thanks!
My Mother made this often, Her parents came from Sweden. My husband’s mother came from Norway and she made it often. I think this is the first year my sister in law did not make it when I visited. The recipe we used was in the Plymouth Rock gelatin package. We do not put lemon in the custard. Time for Mr to make again, as I just picked lemons off my tree.
Thanks for restoring my wife’s belief that I don’t know everything ???? I had never heard of this as ‘Snow Pudding’, but my Mom made a mean Lemon Chiffon Pudding to very much the same recipe. It’s good to remember Plymouth Rock Unflavored Gelatin, and coffee gelatin made with it , too!
I’m a little concerned about eating raw egg whites. Is there a food safety issue here? Maybe should be using pasteurized egg whites? Any thoughts on this
Hi Linda! If you’re concerned about the raw egg whites, you could try using pasteurized egg whites, though these substitutes can sometimes contain additives that prevent the eggs from foaming up properly. I hope this helps — good luck!
Most of the disease in an egg is carried on the shell. I wash eggs in hot soapy water before cracking them. We haven’t been sick ever from raw eggs.
I have this recipe from my mother. She called it Lemon Foam. Because it was a light dessert, we always had it when we had our traditional Acadian dinner, Pâté à la Rapûre (Rappie Pie or Grated Potato Pie). It is a smaller version, and I just love it. Simone Deon
When we went to Nova Scotia we had rappie pie . I loved it. Do you have recipe?
This sounds like it would be wonderful but I question the safety since the egg whites are not cooked would that not increase risk of salmonella or other food borne illness?
Finally! Have been looking for this recipe for a long time. Don’t remember when I first had it, but I’m 81 and remember having it when I was a child. My grandparents were from Norway and Sweden, so I might have had it at their home. I definitely remember putting it out in the snow for setting and having to take turns with my siblings checking several times to see if had set yet. I will make it first chance I get. Thank you!
What a lovely memory! Setting the pudding out in the snow — so pristine and fresh.
My grandmother from Drumkeeran, Co. Leitrim, used to make this for us. It’s not a dessert easily forgotten. My mother claims thst it was called “Leitrim Lumps”. Well, my brother and I have resurrected it as a family tradition.
my grandmother Snow used to make this.
Sounds somewhat like an old dessert called “Floating Islands” which I heard mentioned in the Katharine Hepburn/Spencer Tracy classic film“Desk Set” (1957) on TCM recently.
My mom made this at Christmas with an eggnog sauce. What can I donor believe lemon was used in the pudding what flavor can I substitute and if using a extract how can I substitute to allow for the amount of lemon juice.
I once had a dessert very much like this at a Nordstroms cafe, but it also had a hard Carmel drizzle on it. I swear it was the best dessert I had ever eaten! Always wondered how to get the recipe, and low and behold, a classmate of mine posted her New Years dinner, which included snow pudding! Pinterest was were I found this! Haliluja!
Both my father’s mother and mother’s aunt used to make Snow Pudding with an orange custard sauce. And then my mother started making it. We always enjoyed this dessert for Easter dinners.
I’m looking for a recipe I got from Yankee Magazine years ago! It was contained in an article that I can’t recall, but it was something that the author made for a bridal/baby shower! It was made with lemon jello, juice of 1 lemon, lemon zest whipped just before the jello sets and poured over a graham cracker crust! I had the article for years and enjoyed by everyone, but I feel like l’m missing something when I think about making it! It has to have been 10 years ago! Please help!