Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Snow

A gelatin dessert made with orange juice, egg whites, and a warm milk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Orange and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,696 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Orange Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Make the orange snow

  1. Dissolve gelatine in water and allow it to cool.

  2. Mix the cooled gelatine with orange juice, egg whites, and sugar.

  3. Whisk until fluffy.

  4. Pile the mixture into a crystal dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Warm milk and sugar in a saucepan for the sauce.

  2. Pour the warm mixture over beaten egg yolks and grated orange rind.

  3. Stir over low heat until it thickens.

  4. Let it cool.

  5. Pour around the orange snow.

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. Orange + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 juice and whipped egg white mixture so it holds its fluffy shape.
Egg whites
Whisked into foam, they give the orange snow its light, airy texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the warm milk sauce as they gently set when heated.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to both the orange snow and the milk sauce.
Oranges
Provide the juice and rind that flavour the orange snow and sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce over low heat until it thickens. Egg yolks set when heated, so high heat or overcooking can scramble them. Gentle, steady heat thickens the custard smoothly while keeping it silky.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes