Skip to main content
Dessert

Snow Cake

A baked dessert made with arrowroot, butter, fruit sugar, egg whites, baking powder, and flavoring.

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

Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Snow Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Gradually sift in the sugar, arrowroot, and baking powder while beating well.

  3. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold them into the mixture.

  4. Beat the combined mixture for twenty minutes.

  5. Add flavoring and pour into a baking pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for one hour.

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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Arrowroot + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Arrowroot + buttertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together610 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Arrowroot
Provides the bulk and a light, tender crumb as the main dry ingredient.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps trap air when beaten until creamy.
Fruit sugar
Sweetens the cake and contributes to browning and a soft texture.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the batter and help it rise.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and stay light.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiff egg whites. Whites whipped to stiff peaks hold the air that lightens the cake. Folding gently keeps that air in; overmixing or deflating the whites leaves a dense, flat cake.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, 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.

You might also like

Arrowroot PuddingArrowroot Pudding46 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes