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Dessert

Apple Snow

Apple Snow is a dessert made from mashed apples, whipped egg whites, powdered sugar, lemon juice, and nutmeg, topped with bright jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Apple Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Quarter and core the sour apples without peeling them.

  2. Steam or stew the apples until tender, then mash them through a sieve.

Make the snow

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar.

  2. Mix in the mashed apples and lemon juice, and add nutmeg to taste.

  3. Pile the mixture in a dish and top with bits of bright jelly.

  4. Serve with or without cream.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour apples
Provide the main bulk and a tart flavour that balances the sugar.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the dish its light, airy, snowy structure.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the dish and stabilises the whipped egg white foam as it is added.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten to a firm foam before the sugar and apple are folded in. Under-whipped whites will collapse and make the dish dense and watery instead of light.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Applethe original

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