Skip to main content
Dessert

Snow Custard

A custard made with milk, sugar, lemon and vanilla, folded with beaten egg whites and yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Snow Custard

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Snow Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the milk and whites

  1. Combine milk, sugar, lemon extract, and vanilla extract in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. Beat the egg whites until frothy.

  3. Once the milk boils, pour it over the egg whites and let them cook slightly.

  4. Remove the cooked egg whites and place them on a serving dish.

Make the custard and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix the boiling milk with the beaten egg yolks, stirring constantly.

  2. Return to heat until just below boiling.

  3. Remove from heat and carefully layer the cooked egg whites on top.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which thickens as the egg yolks set.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as their proteins set when gently heated.
Egg whites
Cook into soft, light pieces that float on top of the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the milk base.

The step that matters

Heating the custard after adding the yolks. Egg yolk proteins set with heat, so stirring constantly and stopping just below boiling keeps the custard smooth. Overheating can scramble the yolks into lumps.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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

More snow custard recipes

Apple 3 See all 32 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes