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Dessert

Apple Snow

A dessert of whipped apple pulp mixed with beaten egg whites and sugar, served with whipped cream or custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Remove the skin from the apples and pass the pulp through a sieve.

Make the snow

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Gradually add the sugar to the egg whites.

  3. Fold in the apple pulp until light and soft like snow.

Serve

  1. Pile it roughly on a dish and serve with whipped cream or 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Apple + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,089 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Cooking apples
Provide the pulp that gives the dessert its flavour and body.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the dessert its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Stabilises the whipped egg white foam and adds sweetness.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold stiff peaks, because the foam traps air and gives the snow its lightness. Under-whipped whites will collapse when the apple pulp is folded in, and over-whipped whites turn dry and grainy.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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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