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Dessert

Snow Balls

Sour cream dough cut into shapes, fried in lard, then rolled in frosting and desiccated coconut.

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

Why it works: Nutmeg and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 411 recipes. Both carry beta-pinene, which smells pine, resin. The science ↓

Snow Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix together the sugar, eggs, sour cream, baking soda, and nutmeg.

  2. Gradually add flour until the dough is ½ inch thick.

  3. Cut out shapes using a small cup.

Fry and finish

  1. Heat lard in a frying pan and fry the cutouts until golden.

  2. Let them cool, then roll each in frosting and coat with desiccated coconut.

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. Nutmeg + coconuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together411 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure to the cakes as they set.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tang, keeping the cakes tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream to lighten the dough and help it rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown during frying.
Lard
Frying fat that carries heat to the cutouts and gives them a golden crust.

The step that matters

Frying the cutouts until golden. Frying at a steady, moderate heat cooks the centre through while browning the outside. Too hot and the outside darkens before the inside sets; too cool and the cakes absorb excess fat.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cream, nutmeg, 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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