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Dessert

Apple Snow

Apple Snow is a dessert of stewed apples folded into whipped egg whites and powdered sugar, topped with apple jelly and served with boiled 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, then strain and mash through a sieve.

Make the snow

  1. Whip the egg whites until dry and stiff.

  2. Beat in the powdered sugar, then fold in the mashed apples.

  3. Pile the mixture onto a crystal dish, garnish with apple jelly, and 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 main body and tart flavour of the dish once stewed and mashed.
Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff foam that gives the snow its light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Beaten into the whites to stabilise the foam and sweeten the dish.
Boiled custard
Served alongside as a rich, smooth contrast to the light, tart snow.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites. Whites must be whipped until dry and stiff so they hold air. If they are underwhipped the foam collapses, and if they are overwhipped they turn grainy and weep, so the apple folded in later will deflate the mixture.

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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