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Dessert

Cream Snow

A chilled gelatin dessert made with milk, cream, sugar, egg whites, and flavored with rum, vanilla, rose, and almond extracts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cream Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Soak the gelatine in the milk for 1 hour.

  2. Heat the cream and pour it over the soaked gelatine until dissolved.

  3. Add the sugar, rum or vanilla, rose extract, and almond extract.

  4. Set the mixture on ice.

Set and serve

  1. When it is nearly stiff, fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate until firm.

  3. Turn out onto a dish to 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.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Rose + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Milk + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together967 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Rum + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the mixture into a firm, sliceable structure as it chills.
Egg whites
Folded in beaten form, they add lightness and an airy, snowy texture.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the cream.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites when the mixture is nearly stiff. If the mixture is still too warm or too liquid, the whites deflate and lose their air; if it has already set, they will not blend evenly. Timing the fold while the mixture is thick but still pourable keeps the dessert light.

“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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