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Dessert

Charleston Snow Balls

A sweet rice dessert made with almonds, sugar, and preserve, formed into small balls and topped with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Charleston Snow Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Combine rice, milk, almonds, sugar, and salt in a pot.

  2. Boil until the rice is tender.

Shape and serve

  1. Wet small cups with cold water and fill with the rice mixture.

  2. Once cold, turn the rice out onto a dish in a circle.

  3. Create a border with rich preserve or jelly and pour a little cream into the center.

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. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

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

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the body of the snowballs, softening as it cooks and setting firm when chilled.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to create a soft, creamy texture and moist interior.
Sweet blanched almonds
Add nutty flavor and a little richness to the rice mixture.
White sugar
Sweetens the rice and helps it hold its shape as it cools.
Rich preserve or jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity flavor as a border around the finished dish.

The step that matters

Turn the rice out once cold. The rice mixture must be fully cooled before unmolding so that its starches have set; warm rice is soft and will slump or tear.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Pistachiofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, sugar, cream. 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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