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Dessert

Snow Balls

Snow Balls are fried dough balls rolled in powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Snow Balls

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Snow Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, melted butter, eggs, and sweet milk until combined.

  2. Add cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg; mix until soft.

Fry and serve

  1. Roll out the dough and cut with a small round cutter.

  2. Fry the cut dough in hot lard until golden brown.

  3. Roll the fried balls in powdered sugar before serving.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 richness and structure as they set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that leavens the dough.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with the baking soda for lift.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the dough.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the surface brown when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the cut dough in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the dough absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of crisping. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks through. Steady heat gives an even golden crust and a fully cooked center.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, 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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