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Dessert

Apple Snow

Apple Snow is a dessert of steamed apples, sweetened apple pulp, beaten egg whites, served chilled with boiled custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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. Pare, quarter, and core the apples.

  2. Steam the apples until soft, then rub through a sieve to obtain ½ cup of apple pulp.

Make the snow

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gradually add the sweetened apple pulp while continuing to beat.

Serve

  1. Pile the mixture lightly on a glass dish, chill, 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. Sugar + eggtop 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

Apples
Provide the pulp that gives the snow its fruity flavour and soft body.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they trap air and set the light, airy structure of the snow.
Sugar
Sweetens the apple pulp and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.

The step that matters

Gradually add the sweetened apple pulp while continuing to beat. Adding the pulp slowly while beating keeps the egg white foam from deflating. Pouring it in all at once can collapse the air bubbles and leave the snow dense and watery.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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