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Dessert

Apple Float

Apple Float is a dessert made from boiled apples, sweetened, blended with egg white, nutmeg, and topped with red jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,790 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Float

Ingredients

Directions

Make the apple purée

  1. Peel and core the apples.

  2. Boil the apples until well done.

  3. Remove from heat and beat the apples until very smooth using an egg beater.

  4. Sweeten the apples to taste.

Finish and serve

  1. Add 1 beaten egg white for every cup of apples.

  2. Flavor with grated nutmeg.

  3. Transfer to a dish and dot the top with red jelly.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

  4. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

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
Form the smooth, bulk base of the dish, providing flavour and body.
Egg white
Whipped into the purée to lighten its texture and give it a airy, foamy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the apple purée to taste.

The step that matters

Beat the apples until very smooth. Cooked apples must be beaten thoroughly while hot so no lumps remain; a smooth base lets the egg white fold in evenly and gives the float its light, uniform texture.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, 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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