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Dessert

Lemon Snow

A chilled lemon dessert made with sugar, egg whites, and gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lemon base

  1. Soak the isinglass in cold water for 30 minutes.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the sugar, thin rind, and strained juice of the lemons with the soaked isinglass and water.

  3. Simmer gently until the isinglass is dissolved.

Finish the snow

  1. Remove from heat and let it cool until it begins to thicken.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg whites and whip until stiff.

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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

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

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Isinglass or gelatine
Sets the lemon liquid into a light, wobbly structure as it cools.
Whites of 3 eggs
Whipped into foam, they lighten the mixture and give the snow its airy texture.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the lemon base and balances the sharpness of the juice.
Fresh lemons
Supply the juice and rind that give the dessert its bright lemon flavour.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites after cooling. The mixture must thicken slightly before the egg whites are added. If it is still hot or too thin, the foam collapses and cannot hold its volume, so the snow turns out dense rather than airy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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.

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