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Dessert

Snow Cream

A dessert made by beating egg whites with sugar and folding in fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Snow Cream

Why it works: Peach and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 303 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Snow Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Beat the egg whites until smooth and stiff.

  2. Gradually add the sugar while continuing to beat.

  3. Fold in the fruit gently.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately.

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. Peach + appletop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

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

  2. Orange + peachtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together385 recipes

    Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Orange + appletop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + peachtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Sugar and apple barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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 into foam, they trap air and give the dish its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Added gradually while beating, it stabilises the foam and adds sweetness.
Fruit
Folded in gently to add flavour and moisture without deflating the foam.

The step that matters

Folding in the fruit. Stirring vigorously breaks down the whipped egg white foam, causing it to deflate and become runny. Fold gently with a spatula, cutting through and turning the mixture, so the air bubbles that give the dish its lightness are preserved.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, peach, apple. 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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