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Dessert

Snow Cream

A frothy dessert made by whipping cold water, double cream, lemon juice, and castor sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Snow Cream

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Snow Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the froth

  1. In a basin or stew-pan, combine cold water, double cream, lemon juice, and castor sugar.

  2. Whip the mixture quickly with a whisk until frothy like snow.

  3. Remove the froth with a slice and place it on a fine sieve to drain.

  4. Continue whipping and draining until no more froth can be obtained.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, gently take the froth from the sieve with a slice or spoon.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Double cream
Its fat content gives the whipped froth body and a rich, stable texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the rich cream.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the froth and dissolves easily in the cold liquid.

The step that matters

Continue whipping and draining until no more froth can be obtained. Froth must be removed as it forms, since liquid left behind drains back through the sieve and the foam collapses. Stopping early yields less snow cream.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar. 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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