Name: Charlotte Snowballs
Ingredients: sponge cake mixture; boiled icing; whipped cream; sugar (to sweeten whipped cream); flavoring (to flavor whipped cream); candied cherries; wine or orange jelly

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Charlotte Snowballs

Ingredients

Directions

Bake

Bake the sponge cake mixture in deep round gem pans.

Ice and fill

Once cooled, ice the outside with boiled icing.
Fill the center with sweetened and flavored whipped cream.
Fill with wine or orange jelly and whipped cream.
Top with a candied cherry.
Serve surrounded by jelly.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Cream + winetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,887 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sponge cake mixture: Forms the light, spongy cake base that holds the fillings.
Whipped cream: Adds moisture and a soft, airy texture to the filling.
Boiled icing: Forms a sweet coating over the outside of the cake.
Wine or orange jelly: Adds moisture and a bright, fruity sweetness to the filling.

“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.