Name: Snow Balls
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; 1 cup sugar; 4 egg whites; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 2 cups flour; ½ cup milk; powdered sugar for rolling

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Snow Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar, beating until smooth.
Add the beaten egg whites and mix well.
Combine the baking powder with the flour and add to the butter mixture along with the milk.

Steam and serve

Pour the mixture into cups.
Steam for 45 minutes.
Roll the steamed cakes in powdered sugar 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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter: Adds fat that makes the cakes rich and tender.
Sugar: Sweetens the batter and helps give the cakes a soft crumb.
Egg whites: Add structure and help the cakes hold their shape and rise.
Baking powder: Releases gas during cooking so the cakes rise and become light.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the cakes together.
Milk: Adds moisture and loosens the batter.

“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.