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Dessert

Snow Balls, White

A fried dough ball coated in fine white sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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, White

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, melted butter, eggs, milk, cream of tartar, baking soda, nutmeg, and salt until well combined.

  2. Knead the mixture until it is soft, then roll it out on a floured surface.

  3. Cut out small rounds using a cutter or the top of a tea canister.

Fry and coat

  1. Heat lard in a frying pan over medium-high heat.

  2. Fry the rounds in the hot lard until golden brown.

  3. Prepare a small bowl with fine white sugar.

  4. As you remove each ball from the lard, drop it into the sugar and roll it to coat evenly.

  5. Place the coated balls on a plate and repeat with the remaining dough, adding more sugar as needed.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 structure and richness as they set in the frying lard.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, giving the dough a softer, richer crumb.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with baking soda to help the rounds rise and lighten.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that leavens the dough.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the dough and helps it become soft and pliable.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the fried exterior brown.

The step that matters

Frying the rounds in hot lard. If the lard is too cool, the rounds absorb grease and turn heavy; if too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks. Steady medium-high heat gives a light, golden result.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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