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Dessert

Apple Snow

A custard dessert with stewed apples, egg whites, and sweetened custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Apple Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apple snow

  1. Wash the apples and place them in a stew pan without peeling.

  2. Cover with cold water and stew slowly until soft.

  3. Strain the apples through a sieve.

  4. Beat the egg whites until frothy. Add the sugar to the egg whites.

  5. Mix the sugar and egg whites with the strained apples until white as snow.

Make the custard and serve

  1. In a separate pot, combine the egg yolks, whole eggs, and milk.

  2. Boil the mixture to make custard.

  3. Sweeten and flavor the custard to taste.

  4. Serve the custard alongside the apple mixture.

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 + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

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

Apples
Provide the bulk and tart flavor of the apple snow base once stewed and strained.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam to give the apple snow its light, airy, white texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the apple snow and helps stabilize the beaten egg white foam.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set on heating, giving it richness and body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding creaminess and mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil the custard. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with heat, but overheating causes them to curdle and turn grainy. Heat gently and stir constantly until the custard coats a spoon.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk. 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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