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Dessert

Snowball Custard

A chilled dessert of meringue cups filled with custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Snowball Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine and meringue

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 1 hour, then add boiling water and stir until dissolved.

  2. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, then mix in sugar, vanilla, and lemon (if using), and whip until stiff and cold.

Set the meringue

  1. Dip teacups in cold water and fill with the meringue, then set in a cold place for 4-5 hours.

Make the custard and serve

  1. For the custard, combine egg yolks, sugar, and milk in a saucepan, and flavor with vanilla.

  2. After the meringue has set, turn it out of the cups into a glass dish and pour the custard around it.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid so the meringue holds its shape when turned out.
Egg whites
Trap air to form a stiff, light foam for the meringue.
Sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps stabilize the beaten egg whites.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set and add richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks to trap air. Under-beaten whites stay runny and the meringue will not hold its shape. Over-beaten whites turn grainy and dry, and they can collapse as they set.

“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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