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Dessert

Apple Snow

A dessert of mashed apples folded into stiffened egg whites, topped with bright jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Quarter and core the apples without peeling them.

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

Make the snow

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

  2. Mix in the mashed apples and lemon juice or nutmeg until fluffy.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

Sour apples
Provide the bulk and tart flavour that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Egg whites
Whipped to foam, they give the dish its light, airy, fluffy structure.
Powdered sugar
Stabilises the whipped egg whites and adds sweetness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the apple flavour and balances sweetness.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to stiff peaks before the apple is folded in; under-beaten whites will not hold air and the dish will collapse and turn dense. Adding sugar gradually helps the foam stay stable.

Swap the apple

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

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

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