Maryland · Dessert
Baltimore Snowball
- Easy
- 15 min
- roughly 1 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with a silken, spoon-slow texture, a floral thread lifting the aroma, on a rich, rounded finish.
Ingredients
- Finely shaved ice, packed into cups
- For egg custard syrup: 250ml water, 300g sugar, 2 egg yolks, 1 tbsp vanilla, 1/4 tsp salt
- Marshmallow creme, warmed to pouring consistency
The skills inside
Allergen screen
Found: dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Boil the water and sugar until dissolved, then cool slightly.
- Whisk the yolks in a bowl and temper the warm syrup in slowly.
- Return to low heat and cook 3-4 min, stirring, without boiling. Add vanilla and salt and chill completely. 4 min
- Shave the ice as fine as snow; a snowball is not crushed ice, and the texture is the whole argument.
- Pack a cup, douse with the egg custard syrup, and crown with warm marshmallow.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Tempering a custard 59 recipes
- The hot liquid went into the eggs a little at a time with constant whisking, and only then did everything go back to the pot.
- The heat under it stayed gentle throughout and it was never allowed to boil.
- Stirred continuously and right into the corners of the pan, where it thickens first and sets unnoticed.
- Judged by behaviour: it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon and hold a clean line when a finger is drawn through it.
- Taken off before it looks finished, and strained. Residual heat carries it the rest of the way, and a custard held on the heat until it looks right arrives past right.
Where it goes wrong The hot liquid went in too fast, or the pot went back over full heat to save time. The yolks set into threads before they could thicken smoothly, and a scrambled custard does not come back; straining hides a little of it and nothing hides the rest.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Sauternes
- Also Right
- Demi-sec Champagne
- From the Taps
- Belgian tripel
- Zero-Proof
- Jasmine tea
The sweetness rule is absolute: the pour must be sweeter than the plate, and acid keeps it from cloying.
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