Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Snow Balls
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C).
Make and shape the meringue
In a bowl, mix the egg whites and powdered sugar until well combined.
Using a piping bag fitted with a star tip, pipe the mixture onto a baking sheet in rows, forming shapes the size of a large hickory nut.
Lift the piping bag to create a point on top and a larger base.
Sift additional powdered sugar over the piped shapes.
Bake and serve
Bake in the preheated oven until set.
Once done, pair two pieces together and allow them to cool.
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.
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Whip-free structure: they set in the oven to form the light, crisp shell.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens and stiffens the egg whites, helping the piped shapes hold their form.
The step that matters
Baking until set. Baking at a low temperature dries the outside slowly so the shapes set firm and crisp without browning. Pulling them too early can leave them soft and sticky, while overbaking can make them dry and brittle.
“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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