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Dessert

Apple Snow

A dessert made from roasted apple pulp mixed with egg, powdered sugar, and alum, then beaten until fluffy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 pulp

  1. Roast the apples until soft.

  2. Work the pulp through a sieve.

  3. Measure the pulp to match the weight of one egg and combine it with the same weight of powdered sugar.

Whip and serve

  1. Beat the apple pulp and sugar together until the mixture is white and fluffy.

  2. Add a pinch of ground alum and continue beating until fully combined.

  3. Lightly pile the mixture into a dish.

  4. Serve with cream, custard, or preserved raspberries/strawberries if desired.

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

White apples
Provide the pulp that forms the body and flavour of the snow.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the pulp and helps it hold a stable, light foam when beaten.
Ground alum
Added in a pinch to help the beaten mixture stay white and fluffy.

The step that matters

Beating the pulp and sugar until white and fluffy. Beating incorporates air into the pulp, which creates the light, foamy texture. Under-beating leaves it dense, while the sugar helps stabilise the foam so it holds its shape when piled into a dish.

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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