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Dessert

Apple Snow

Apple Snow is a dessert of stewed apples mixed with whipped egg whites and powdered sugar, topped with apple jelly and served with custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 the apples

  1. Quarter and stew the apples until tender.

  2. Strain and mash them through a sieve.

Make the snow

  1. Whip the egg whites until dry and stiff.

  2. Beat in the powdered sugar and the mashed apples.

Serve

  1. Pile the mixture onto a crystal dish.

  2. Garnish with apple jelly.

  3. Serve with boiled custard.

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. Egg + sugartop 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

Tart apples
Provide the bulk, tartness and fruity flavour of the dish once cooked and mashed.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the snow its light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and dissolves easily into the foam without grittiness.
Boiled custard
Adds richness and creamy contrast to the tart apple mixture when served alongside.

The step that matters

Whip the egg whites until dry and stiff. Egg whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks; underwhipped whites stay runny and collapse, while the mashed apple added afterward can deflate overbeaten foam.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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