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Dessert

Snow Custard

A chilled custard dessert with macaroons soaked in wine, flavored with orange juice and rind, topped with gelatin.

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

Why it works: Orange and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,046 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Snow Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in water.

  2. Squeeze the juice of the oranges over the sugar and add the grated rind.

  3. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  4. Fold the beaten egg whites into the mixture.

  5. Make a custard with the egg yolks.

Assemble

  1. Soak the macaroons in wine.

  2. Place the soaked macaroons in a dish.

  3. Pour the custard over the macaroons.

  4. Top with the gelatine mixture.

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. Orange + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,046 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Orange + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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 gelatine layer on top so it holds its shape when served.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks, they fold in air that gives the topping a light, foamy texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they cook, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Macaroons
Soaked in wine, they soften and form the moist base layer under the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the orange mixture and balances its acidity.

The step that matters

Fold the beaten egg whites into the mixture. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the stiff egg whites. Stirring vigorously knocks the air out, so the topping turns dense instead of light and fluffy.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Orangethe original

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