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Dessert

Snow Cream

Snow Cream is a chilled dessert made from sweet cream, corn starch, egg whites, sweetener, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Snow Cream

Why it works: Corn and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Snow Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream base

  1. Heat the cream in a saucepan until it is ready to boil.

  2. Blend the corn starch with some cold cream and stir it into the boiling cream quickly.

  3. Sweeten to taste and allow to boil gently for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly.

Finish and set

  1. Add the beaten egg whites and do not let it boil more than once after adding the eggs.

  2. Flavor with your choice of lemon, vanilla, bitter almond, or grated lemon peel.

  3. Quickly shape the mixture into rocky heaps on silver or glass dishes, or in molds.

  4. Chill before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Cream + corntop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Corn + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Thick sweet cream
Provides the rich fat and body that make up most of the dessert.
Corn starch
Thickens the boiling cream so the mixture holds its shape when cooled.
Egg whites
Whipped into the hot mixture to add lightness and a soft, airy texture.

The step that matters

Adding the egg whites. Egg whites set and toughen when overheated, so boiling after they go in can curdle or weep the mixture. Keep it below a boil once they are added.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, corn, 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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