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Dessert

Apple Snow

A dessert of steamed apple puree folded into stiffened egg whites and powdered sugar, served with jelly garnish and soft custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Apple Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Quarter and core the apples without peeling them.

  2. Steam the apples until soft, then rub through a fine sieve.

Make the snow

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff and dry.

  2. Add the powdered sugar to the egg whites and beat again.

  3. Mix in the apple puree and beat until fluffy like snow.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a glass dish, garnish with jelly, and serve with soft custard.

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

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

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

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

  3. Apple + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,461 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Tart apples
Provide the main flavour and the fruit pulp that gives the dessert its body.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the dessert its light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the whipped whites, sweetening them and helping stabilise the foam.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff and dry. Egg whites must be whipped to firm peaks without overbeating, because the air bubbles they trap give the snow its lightness. Folding in the apple puree too roughly can deflate that foam.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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