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Dessert

Apple Snowball

A dessert of rice and apples steamed in molds, served with a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Snowball

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Cook the rice in a double boiler with salt, milk, and water until all the liquid is absorbed.

Assemble the molds

  1. Butter small molds or cups well and line them with ½ inch of hot rice.

  2. Fill the center of each mold with a quarter of a sour apple and sprinkle with sugar, cinnamon, or lemon juice.

Steam and serve

  1. Cover the apple with more rice and steam in a steamer or in a pan of hot water on the stove for 30 minutes.

  2. Slightly cook the apples before using for best results.

  3. Serve with a creamy sauce and be careful when removing from the mold to maintain their shape.

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. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rice
Its starch absorbs liquid and sets as it steams, forming a firm shell that holds the mold's shape.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy flavour as it is absorbed into the rice.
Sour apples
Provide moisture and tartness that balance the sugar and freshen the dish.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that contrasts with the tart apple.

The step that matters

Removing the molds. The rice shell only holds its shape once its starch has set after steaming and cooling. If it is still soft, or the molds were not buttered well, the shell can tear and lose its form.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, apple, sugar, cinnamon, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, apple, sugar, cinnamon, butter. 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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