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Dessert

Apple Snow

A dessert of whipped apple pulp layered with sponge cakes soaked in brandy and water, topped with apple snow and garnished.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Apple Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Bake the apples until soft, ensuring they do not brown.

  2. Pulp the apples through a sieve and let them cool.

Make the apple snow

  1. Whisk the cooled apple pulp until white and frothy.

  2. Beat in the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Gradually add the sifted sugar while continuing to beat until it resembles whipped cream.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a glass dish, layer the sponge cakes cut in half with jam between each slice.

  2. Mix the brandy and water, then pour it over the sponge cakes and let soak for one hour.

  3. Top the soaked cakes with the apple snow.

  4. Decorate with angelica and crystallized cherries.

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 + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  2. Apricot + brandytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

  4. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

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

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
Their pulp forms the light, smooth body of the snow.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they give the snow its airy, stable structure.
Sifted sugar
Sweetens the snow and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.
Sponge cakes
Absorb the brandy and water, becoming soft and moist beneath the snow.
Apricot jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour between the sponge cake layers.

The step that matters

Beating in the sugar gradually. Adding sugar slowly while beating lets the egg white foam hold its air and become glossy. Dumping it in at once can collapse the foam and leave the snow dense.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, apricot, brandy. 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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