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Dessert

Apple Snow

A custard dessert with baked apples folded into beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Make the custard

  1. Make a boiled custard with the milk, egg yolks, and 1 cup of sugar.

  2. Let it cool and pour into a shallow glass dish.

Prepare the apple pulp

  1. Bake the whole apples in a covered dish with a little water until tender.

  2. Remove the skins and core, then scrape out the pulp.

  3. Mix in the remaining sugar and lemon juice.

Assemble and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and gradually fold in the apple pulp until white and firm.

  2. Pile the apple mixture on top of the custard and serve immediately or keep in a very cold place.

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

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

  3. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard, while beaten whites give the topping its light, airy structure.
Apples
Cooked pulp provides the bulk and flavour of the snow topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and the apple pulp.
Milk
Forms the base of the boiled custard layer.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet apple pulp.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to a stiff froth. Whites must be beaten until stiff and folded in gently, since under-beaten whites collapse and over-mixing deflates the air that gives the topping its light, firm texture.

Swap the apple

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

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

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