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Dessert

Snow Pyramid

A chilled dessert made of whipped egg whites, currant jelly, and heavy cream shaped into a pyramid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Snow Pyramid

Ingredients

Directions

Make the snow

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Add the currant jelly and whip together until combined.

Assemble

  1. Fill each saucer halfway with heavy cream.

  2. Drop a tablespoon of the egg and jelly mixture in the center of each saucer, shaping it like a pyramid.

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. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

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

  3. Currant + creamtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,829 recipes

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks, they form the airy, light structure of the pyramid.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity flavor, and is whipped into the foam to tint and flavor it.
Heavy cream
Forms the creamy base in each saucer that the pyramid sits on.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to stiff peaks without any trace of fat or yolk. Under-whipped whites collapse, and the pyramid cannot hold its shape.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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