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Dessert

Vanilla Snow

A chilled gelatin dessert made with vanilla, sugar, egg whites, custard, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Vanilla Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatine base

  1. Soak gelatin in cold water until soft.

  2. Add boiling water to the gelatin.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Let the mixture cool until it begins to adhere to the sides of the vessel.

Whip the snow

  1. Stir in sugar, beaten egg whites, and vanilla.

  2. Beat the mixture until light and stiff, about 30 minutes.

Make the custard and serve

  1. Make a soft custard with egg yolks, milk, and a little corn starch.

  2. Once the custard is cold, top it with the gelatin mixture.

  3. Serve with cream.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Vanilla + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

Gelatine
Sets the mixture so the whipped foam holds its shape.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam that gives the snow its light, airy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the snow and helps stabilise the whipped foam.
Milk
Forms the base of the soft custard that the snow rests on.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard so it holds a soft, smooth body.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture until light and stiff. The gelatine must be cool but still liquid and just starting to thicken, so the whipped foam traps air and holds its shape. If it sets too far, it will not whip smoothly; if too warm, the foam will collapse.

“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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