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Dessert

Bicb Snow Balls

Apples wrapped in a coating of boiled rice, tied in a cloth and boiled, then served with sugar, butter or wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,207 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Bicb Snow Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash and pick the rice.

  2. Boil the rice in plenty of water for 10 to 15 minutes.

  3. Drain the rice until dry.

  4. Divide the rice into 6 portions.

Wrap the apples

  1. Peel the apples as for dumplings.

  2. Surround each apple with a portion of rice.

  3. Tie each apple in a cloth loosely.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the wrapped apples for 1 hour.

  2. Serve with sugar and butter or wine sauce.

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 + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

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

  3. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rice
Its cooked starch forms a firm, cohesive coating that holds around each apple.
Apples
They soften as they boil, becoming tender and sweet-tart inside the rice shell.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the finished apples when served.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the flavour of the served apple.

The step that matters

Tying each apple loosely. Rice swells and expands as it absorbs water during boiling. A loose cloth leaves room for this expansion, while a tight tie can squeeze the coating, misshape it, or cause it to split.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Grapefits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, sugar, butter, wine, sauce. 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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