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Dessert

Apple Snow

A dessert of grated apple mixed with powdered sugar and beaten egg whites, topped with custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Apple Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the apple.

  2. Grate the apple, sprinkling powdered sugar over it to prevent browning.

Whip and serve

  1. In a bowl, break in the egg whites and beat the mixture constantly for 30 minutes.

  2. Heap the mixture in a large glass dish.

  3. Pour custard made from the egg yolks around the apple mixture and serve.

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. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Apple + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,461 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Egg whites
Beaten into a foam, they trap air and give the dish its light, airy structure.
Apple
Supplies the tart flavour and the fruity body of the mixture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the apple and helps keep the grated fruit pale.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it thicken when gently cooked.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites. Egg whites only foam well when the bowl and whisk are free of fat and yolk, and the foam deflates if it stands too long. Beating steadily until the whites hold their shape keeps the dish light and stops it from collapsing.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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