Skip to main content
Main

Apple Snowballs

A boiled apple wrapped in rice, tied with a cloth, served after cooking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Apple Snowballs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the rice in milk until three-quarters done, then strain it.

  2. Core the apples without dividing them.

  3. Put a small amount of sugar and a clove into each apple.

Wrap and boil

  1. Wrap the rice around each apple and tie them separately in a cloth.

  2. Boil until the apples are tender.

Serve

  1. Remove the cloths and serve.

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 + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Rice + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Rice + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 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

Rice
Forms the starchy coating that encloses each apple as it cooks.
Apples
Provide the fruit core that softens and sweetens during boiling.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture to the filling inside each apple.

The step that matters

Wrapping the rice around each apple. The rice must cover each apple fully and be tied securely in its own cloth so the coating holds its shape and the apple cooks evenly without the rice falling apart in the water.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, apple, 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.

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesApple SoupApple Soup33 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipes