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Dessert

Snow Custard

A chilled gelatin dessert made with eggs, milk, sugar, lemon, and meringue.

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

Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Snow Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in a teacup of cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Add 1 pint of boiling water to the soaked gelatine.

  3. Stir until the gelatine is dissolved.

  4. Mix in two-thirds of the sugar and the lemon juice.

Make the meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gradually whip in the gelatine mixture, spoonful by spoonful, for 1 hour.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold that has been wet with cold water.

  4. Refrigerate until set, about 4 to 5 hours.

Make the custard

  1. Combine the milk, egg yolks, and remaining sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Flavor with vanilla.

  3. Cook until thickened.

Serve

  1. Turn the set meringue onto a serving dish.

  2. Pour the custard around the base.

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 liquid mixture into a firm, sliceable structure as it cools.
Eggs
Whites whipped to stiff foam give the snow its light, airy texture; yolks enrich the custard.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard, adding richness and body.
Sugar
Sweetens both the snow and the custard and helps give the custard a smooth body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the dish.

The step that matters

Gradually whip in the gelatine mixture. Gelatine must be added slowly to the whites while it is still liquid but not hot, so it blends in without deflating the foam or setting in lumps before the whites are fully incorporated.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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