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Dessert

Snow Pyramids

A chilled dessert made with whipped egg whites, currant jelly, cream, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Snow Pyramids

Ingredients

Directions

Make the meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff foam forms.

  2. Add the currant jelly and whip together.

  3. Sweeten to taste.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill saucers half full with cream.

  2. Drop a tablespoon of the beaten egg and jelly mixture in the center of each saucer, shaping it like a pyramid.

  3. Season with lemon.

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.

  1. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the pyramids their light, airy structure.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and tartness and helps flavor and tint the whipped foam.
Cream
Forms the base in the saucers, adding richness and a cool, creamy contrast to the foam.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff foam forms. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold stiff peaks. Under-whipped whites collapse and spread, so the pyramids lose their shape; over-whipping makes them dry and grainy. Adding the jelly after the foam is stable helps it keep its volume.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raspberryfits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, lemon. 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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