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Dessert

Snow Cream

A coconut-based dessert made with grated coconut, whipped egg whites, sugar, rosewater or pineapple essence, and heavy cream.

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

Why it works: Coconut and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 651 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Snow Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the white flesh of the coconut and place it in the center of a glass dish.

Make the topping

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Add the sugar and rosewater or pineapple essence to the egg whites and mix well.

  3. Fold in the whipped cream gently.

Serve

  1. Spoon the mixture around the grated coconut and serve.

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. Coconut + pineappletop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together651 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Coconut + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,223 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the topping its light, airy structure.
Heavy whipping cream
Folded in to add fat and softness, keeping the whipped topping light and creamy.
White sugar
Sweetens the topping and helps stabilize the whipped egg white foam.
Coconut
Provides the main flavor and a contrasting texture beneath the airy topping.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold firm peaks, because the foam traps air and gives the dish its light structure. Under-whipped whites stay runny and deflate when other ingredients are folded in.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Bananafits about as well
  3. Pineapplethe original
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against coconut, egg, sugar, cream. 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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