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Dessert

Orange Snow

A gelatin-based dessert made with orange juice, lemon juice, sugar, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Orange Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatine base

  1. Soak the gelatine in ½ cup cold water until soft.

  2. Add 1 pint boiling water and stir until the gelatine is dissolved.

  3. Set aside in a cool place until it begins to thicken.

Build the snow

  1. Beat in the strained juice of 6 oranges, juice of 1 lemon, and 2 cups sugar.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  3. Beat the whole mixture until it looks white and sponge-like.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a mold and set on ice to harden.

  2. Serve with whipped cream.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  4. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

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

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, wobbly structure as it cools.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they lighten the mixture into a airy, sponge-like texture.
Orange juice
Provides the main citrus flavour and liquid base for the dessert.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and helps stabilise the whipped foam.

The step that matters

Beat the whole mixture until it looks white and sponge-like. The gelatine must be thickened but not fully set before beating, otherwise it cannot trap air and the snow will stay dense rather than light and fluffy.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

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