Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Apple Snow
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the apples
Peel, core, and slice the apples.
Place the apples in a saucepan with water and lemon rind.
Boil until tender, then mash until smooth and let cool.
Make the snow
Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Fold the whipped egg whites into the cooled apple mixture until well combined.
Serve
Serve piled high on a fancy dish and garnish with colored sugar.
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.
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Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 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
- Apples
- Cook down to a soft pulp that forms the base of the dish.
- Whites of 3 eggs
- Whipped into foam to give the dish its light, airy, snow-like texture.
- Castor sugar
- Sweetens the dish and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.
The step that matters
Whipping the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be whipped until stiff peaks form so they hold air. Under-whipped whites collapse when folded in, and any trace of fat or yolk prevents them from whipping properly.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, lemon):
- Orangefits better
- Vanillafits better
- Limefits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, lemon. 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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