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Dessert

Snow Eggs

A dessert of whipped egg whites set in a custard of milk, sugar, vanilla, and citron peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Snow Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the egg whites

  1. Separate the egg whites from the yolks.

  2. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks, adding a little sugar and vanilla.

  3. Bring the milk to a boil.

  4. Drop spoonfuls of the whipped egg whites into the boiling milk and simmer for 4 minutes, turning to cook both sides.

  5. Remove the cooked egg whites and drain on a strainer.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks and mix with the milk to make a custard, adding more milk if necessary, along with the remaining sugar and flavoring.

Assemble and serve

  1. Once cool, pour the custard into a glass dish and arrange the egg whites in a circle on top.

  2. Garnish with chopped citron peel.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 to stiff peaks, they form the light, airy poached puffs that float on the custard.
Egg yolks
Beaten into the milk, they thicken the custard and give it a smooth, rich texture.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard and the liquid the egg whites are poached in.
Sugar
Sweetens the whites and custard and helps the whipped whites hold their structure.

The step that matters

Simmering the whipped egg whites. The whites should be cooked gently for the stated time and turned once so they set firm without boiling apart or toughening. Over-vigorous boiling can break up the delicate foam.

“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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