Snow Pudding

Isabella

This is a combination of lemon gelatin and egg custard or whipped cream. If you pour the custard over the whipped gelatin, you have Snow Pudding. If you pour the custard in a bowl and plop the whipped gelatin on top, it is Floating Island.

Whipped Gelatin

• 2 tablespoons gelatin
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 2 cups boiling water
• 1 cup sugar
• Rind and juice of 2 lemons
• Whites of 2 or 3 eggs (save yolks for custard)

Prepare a lemon jelly. [Let the gelatin soften in the cold water. Add the hot water, sugar and lemon.] Let cool until quite stiff [but not completely set], beat with a dover egg beater [your basic hand-held egg beater] until frothy. Add egg whites and continue beating until mixture is light and spongy. Pour into a glass dish. Let stand several hours until firm. Serve with a soft, cooked custard from yolks of eggs, or with cream.

Rotary egg beaters were invented in the 1860s. The Dover egg beater, patented in Massachusetts in 1873, became one of the most popular styles. It is similar to hand beaters still in use.

Dover Egg Beater (source: Home Things Past)

Custard

The writers of our family recipes mostly assumed that cooks knew how to make an egg custard. If you have your own recipe, use it. Otherwise, here is a custard sauce from the mystery box. (It comes from an Apple Fluff recipe, so you could pour it over the stewed apples from Apple Charlotte for a different dessert.)

• 1 pint milk
• yolks of 2 or 3 eggs
• 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch

Mix ingredients in the top of a double boiler. Cook, stirring constantly until thick.