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Snow Balls

A fried dough ball rolled in powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Snow Balls

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 dough

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, melted butter, eggs, and milk until combined.

  2. Add baking powder, salt, and nutmeg, then gradually incorporate flour to form a soft dough.

  3. Roll out the dough and cut it with a small biscuit cutter.

Fry and coat

  1. Fry the cut dough in hot oil until golden brown, similar to doughnuts.

  2. Remove from oil and roll in powdered sugar while still warm.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure as they set in the frying oil.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the dough rise and turn light and airy.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, contributing to a rich crumb and flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the surface brown during frying.
Milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and forms a soft dough.

The step that matters

Frying the cut dough in hot oil. If the oil is not hot enough, the dough absorbs oil and becomes greasy; if too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks through. Steady heat gives a golden, cooked-through result.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour. 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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