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Dessert

Apple Float

A chilled apple puree dessert folded with stiff egg whites and served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Float

Ingredients

Directions

Make the apple base

  1. Prepare apple puree from tart apples and sweeten to taste.

  2. Add grated lemon rind and cinnamon or nutmeg if desired.

  3. Chill the apple puree in ice until very cold.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold into the chilled apple puree.

  2. Serve with 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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks, they trap air and lighten the puree into a airy, foamy texture.
Apple puree
Forms the fruity body of the dish and provides moisture and sweetness for the foam.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart apples and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.

The step that matters

Folding the beaten egg whites into the chilled puree. Egg whites hold air only when whipped to stiff peaks, and folding gently keeps that air in. Deflating them by stirring vigorously makes the float heavy and dense. Cold puree also helps the foam stay stable while it is combined.

Swap the cinnamon

The recipe marks cinnamon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, lemon, egg, cream):

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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