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Dessert

Snow Cream

A light gelatin dessert made with egg whites, sugar, vanilla, and boiled water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Snow Cream

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Snow Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in 1 pint of boiling water until dissolved.

  2. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  3. Let the gelatine cool slightly, but do not let it set.

Combine

  1. Gently fold the gelatine into the beaten egg whites and sugar.

  2. Add vanilla extract to taste.

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

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

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

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

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

Gelatine
Sets the mixture into a light, spoonable structure as it cools.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they give the dessert its airy volume and lightness.
White sugar
Sweetens the dish and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.

The step that matters

Fold in the gelatine while it is only slightly cool. If the gelatine is too hot, it will deflate the whipped egg white foam. If it has begun to set, it will form lumps and stiff strands instead of blending smoothly into the airy mixture.

“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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