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Dessert

Snow Balls

Snow Balls are deep-fried dough balls made with eggs, sugar, sour cream, baking soda, cream of tartar, flour, salt, and rolled in sugar and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Snow Balls

Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Snow Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and beat until light.

  2. Add the sugar and beat again.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour cream and mix lightly into the egg mixture.

  4. Mix the cream of tartar with the flour and add it last.

Fry and coat

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot fat.

  2. Fry until golden brown.

  3. Remove the ends and roll the balls in granulated sugar and cinnamon.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Beaten until light, they give the batter air and structure for a tender interior.
Baking soda
Dissolved in sour cream, it reacts with the acid to release gas and lighten the dough.
Sour cream
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness.
Cream of tartar
An acid that works with the baking soda to help the balls rise and stay light.
Flour
Forms the stiff batter's structure, which holds its shape in hot fat.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the batter and adds a crisp sugar coating when rolled.

The step that matters

Dropping the batter into the hot fat. The batter must be stiff enough to hold a spoonful's shape. If it is too thin or the fat is not hot enough, the balls spread, absorb oil and turn greasy instead of puffing and browning.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Jalapenofits about as well
  3. Cinnamonthe original
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cream, flour. 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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