Skip to main content
Dessert

Snow Balls

A steamed cake made from eggs, sugar, milk, flour, and baking powder, rolled in powdered sugar and served with hard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Snow Balls

Why it works: Sugar and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,147 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Snow Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs until light, then gradually add the sugar while beating continuously.

  2. Add the milk and flour, and beat again until well combined.

  3. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and quickly fold them into the batter along with the baking powder.

Steam and serve

  1. Fill buttered cups two-thirds full with the batter and steam for twenty minutes.

  2. Roll the steamed balls in powdered sugar and serve immediately with hard sauce.

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. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Whites trapped as a stiff foam lighten the batter and give the snowballs their airy structure.
Flour
Forms the starch and gluten framework that sets into the body of the steamed balls.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming, helping the batter rise and stay light.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the yolks whip to a light, stable texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it sets softly rather than dense.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites beaten to a stiff froth hold air that gives lift. Folding gently and quickly keeps that air from collapsing, so the steamed snowballs stay light rather than heavy.

“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.

More snowballs recipes

Rice 51Apple 25Orange 16Almond 7 See all 17 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes