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Dessert

Snow Drift

A chilled ice cream made with milk, isinglass, sugar, lemon juice, eggs, and a boiled custard topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Snow Drift

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the isinglass

  1. Soak the isinglass in 1 quart of cold water for 2 hours or overnight, weighted down.

  2. Remove the isinglass from the water and pour 1 pint of boiling water over it.

  3. Add the sugar and lemon juice to the isinglass mixture.

Set and mold

  1. Chill the mixture on ice until it begins to thicken.

  2. Beat the whites of 4 eggs until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into cold water-wetted molds and place them on ice.

Serve

  1. Serve with a boiled custard made from the 4 yolks, 1 whole egg, and the milk.

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. Milk + eggtop 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

Isinglass
Gelatin-like protein that sets the mixture so it holds its shape when molded.
Eggs
Whites are beaten to add airy lightness, and yolks and whole egg enrich the custard.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and adds body to the set dessert.
Milk
Forms the base of the boiled custard that accompanies the dessert, adding richness.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff whites trap air that gives the mousse-like texture. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring hard deflates the foam. Chilling until the mixture just begins to thicken helps the whites hold their volume when added.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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