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Dessert

Snow Souffle

A light, frothy dessert made with eggs, gelatin, sugar, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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 ↓

Snow Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Dissolve the gelatin in hot water.

Make the mixture

  1. Add sugar and lemon juice to the gelatin mixture and let it cool.

  2. Stir the beaten egg whites into the cooled mixture.

Finish

  1. Beat the whole mixture together until well combined.

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air, giving the souffle its light, foamy structure.
Gelatine
Sets as it cools, holding the airy mixture in shape.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavour that cuts the sweetness.

The step that matters

Let the gelatine mixture cool before folding in the egg whites. If the gelatine mixture is still warm, it will deflate the beaten whites and lose their air. If it has begun to set, it will form lumps and the foam will not blend evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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