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Dessert

Apple Snow

Apple Snow is a dessert of steamed apples topped with stiffly whipped egg whites and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,918 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Apple Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Core, quarter, and steam the apples.

  2. Rub the apples through a sieve and let cool.

Make the snow

  1. Whip the egg whites to very stiff froth.

  2. Gradually add the powdered sugar and continue whipping until white and stiff.

Serve

  1. Pile the mixture in a dish and garnish with dots of currant jelly.

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 + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

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 flavor and the bulk of the purée that gives the dessert its body.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that holds air, giving the dessert its light, snowy structure.
Powdered sugar
Stabilizes the whipped whites and adds sweetness to balance the tart apples.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites with sugar. Whites must be whipped to a very stiff foam before the sugar is added gradually. Under-whipped or greasy whites will not hold air, so the snow collapses and turns dense.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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

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