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Dessert

Snow Cheese

A sweet cheese made from thick cream, sugar, lemon juice, almonds, rose water, and ratafia.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Snow Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Sweeten the thick cream with pounded loaf sugar.

  2. Add the strained juice of the lemons and the pounded almonds.

  3. Mix in the rose water and ratafia.

  4. Beat the mixture with a whisk until thick.

Shape and set

  1. Pour it into a shape or sieve lined with muslin.

  2. Let it sit for 12 hours, then turn it out.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Lemon + rosetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Thick cream
Its fat and whisked air give the dessert body and a light, thick texture.
Lemon juice
Its acidity thickens the cream and adds a sharp, bright tang that balances the sugar.
Pounded almonds
They add body and a nutty richness that thickens the mixture slightly.
Loaf sugar
It sweetens the cream and softens the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Rose water
It contributes a floral aroma that defines the dessert's flavor.

The step that matters

Beat until thick, then stop. Whisking cream builds structure by trapping air in its fat. Beating past the point of thickness can overwork the fat, making the cream grainy and prone to separating.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, almond, rose. 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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