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Snow Ice Thaw

A gelatin dessert with custard and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Snow Ice Thaw

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatin layer

  1. Soak gelatin in a little cold water, then dissolve it in boiling water.

  2. Add lemon juice and sugar to the dissolved gelatin.

  3. When cold, add beaten egg whites and beat thoroughly for 30 minutes until stiff.

  4. Pour mixture into moulds and refrigerate overnight.

Make the custard and meringue

  1. Combine yolks of 3 eggs, 1 whole egg, sugar, and milk in a saucepan.

  2. Heat over low heat, stirring until thickened.

  3. Flavor the custard with lemon or vanilla.

  4. Beat the whites of 3 eggs with fine sugar until stiff.

  5. Turn the gelatin mixture into a glass dish, pour the custard over it, and top with the beaten egg whites.

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. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 lemon mixture into a wobbly, sliceable structure as it cools.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they lighten the gelatin mixture and form the topping.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk custard as they cook gently and set.
Milk
Forms the body of the custard, giving it a creamy, soft texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the gelatin layer.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks; under-beaten foam collapses and the topping turns runny. Adding the mixture too warm can also deflate the foam, so the gelatin should be cool but not setting.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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