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Dessert

Apple Float

Apple Float is a dessert made with stewed apples, egg whites, sugar, cream, wine, and garnished with kisses or macaroons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Apple Float

Ingredients

Directions

Make the apple base

  1. Mash the stewed apples in a bowl.

  2. Add the beaten egg whites and loaf sugar to the apples.

  3. Beat the mixture for 15 minutes.

Whip the cream and serve

  1. In another bowl, mix the cream, fine sugar, and wine.

  2. Whip the cream mixture until frothy, skimming off the froth into the serving dish.

  3. Fill the dish to the top and garnish with kisses or macaroons.

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

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

  2. Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Apples
Provide the fruit pulp and body that forms the base of the dish.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they lighten the apple base and give it an airy, floating texture.
Cream
Whipped into a frothy layer that tops the dish and adds richness.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the apple base and helps stabilise the beaten egg whites.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the whipped cream and dissolves easily into it.

The step that matters

Beat the apple and egg white mixture for 15 minutes. Sustained beating traps air in the egg white proteins so the mixture stays light and foamy. Under-beating leaves it dense, while the foam can collapse if left standing too long before serving.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cream, wine, nutmeg. 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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