Snow pudding is a great old American recipe that dates back to pioneer days, back when resourceful home cooks hankering for a treat had to rely on whatever they had — things such as gelatin, lemons, sugar and eggs. ADVERTISING
Snow pudding is a great old American recipe that dates back to pioneer days, back when resourceful home cooks hankering for a treat had to rely on whatever they had — things such as gelatin, lemons, sugar and eggs.
In fact, the very first edition of Fanny Farmer’s “Boston Cooking School Cookbook” in 1896 featured a recipe for snow pudding. My paternal grandmother, Ruth, a graduate of the Boston Cooking School, used to make it for me all the time when I was a kid. As my preference then was for full-fat, more-is-better desserts, I shouldn’t have cared as much as I did for light and airy snow pudding. But there was something magical about it.
It sort of evaporated in the mouth, like cotton candy or even, uh, like snow.
A lifetime later, I still remember snow pudding with great affection.
So, why not dust it off and bring it back for spring, topped with one of the new season’s first fruits — strawberries?
What makes snow pudding so foamy and light is all the air that gets beaten into it.
If you own a stand mixer — which I think of as the workhorse of mixers — you’ll find that making this pudding is pretty simple. You also can do it with a hand mixer, though it’ll take a lot longer.
This being strawberry season, you should be able to find some beauties at your local store, berries that are bright red from top to bottom with a strong strawberry aroma. Here, I’ve sliced the strawberries, tossed them with a bit of sugar, and spiked them with a shot of orange liqueur. Sugar has the same effect on fruit as salt does on vegetables; it pulls out the natural juices. In this case, the sliced strawberries end up steeping in a pool of their own sauce. Strawberries and strawberry sauce, a natural and luxurious twofer.
Of course, if you don’t want the extra sugar and alcohol, you can leave them out. The strawberries pair up beautifully with the pudding all by themselves. So does any summer fruit: raspberries, blueberries, nectarines, plums and peaches, or a mix of all of them. For that matter, snow pudding happens to be delicious even when there’s snow on the ground. You just swap in winter fruit — orange or grapefruit sections, for example — in place of the strawberries.
