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Dessert

Snow Cake

A light, frothy cake made with arrowroot, butter, sugar, egg whites, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 242 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Snow Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter to a cream.

  2. Gradually stir in the sugar, arrowroot, and vanilla essence.

  3. Beat the egg whites to a froth and add them to the mixture.

  4. Beat the entire mixture well for 30 minutes.

  5. Place the batter in a shallow tin.

  6. Sprinkle white sugar on top before baking.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour.

  2. Do not allow to brown.

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. Arrowroot + vanillatop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together242 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 a froth, they trap air that lifts the cake and gives it a light, airy crumb.
Arrowroot
Provides a fine, tender starch structure that gives the cake its delicate, snowy texture.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar to add richness, softness, and a tender crumb.
White sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps stabilise the batter's airy structure while it bakes.

The step that matters

Do not allow to brown. This cake relies on its pale, delicate structure. Over-browning from too much heat or baking too long dries the surface and adds bitter, toasted flavour, so the oven must be kept moderate and the cake watched closely.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits about as well
  2. Arrowrootthe original
  3. Capsicumfits less well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, vanilla. 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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