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Dessert

Apple Snow

A dessert of mashed apples mixed with whipped egg whites and powdered sugar, topped with bright jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Apple Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Steam or stew the apples until tender, then mash them through a sieve.

Make the snow

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar.

  2. Mix in the mashed apples and lemon juice or nutmeg until fluffy.

Serve

  1. Pile the mixture in a dish and top with bits of bright jelly.

  2. Serve with or without 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

Sour apples
Provide the main bulk and a tart flavour that balances the sugar.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they trap air and give the dish its light, fluffy structure.
Powdered sugar
Stabilises the whipped whites and adds sweetness to the fruit.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the apple flavour and helps keep the foam stable.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to firm peaks before the sugar and apple are folded in. Under-whipped whites collapse, and the mixture loses its fluffy texture.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Applethe original

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