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Dessert

Apple Snow

A dessert of stewed apples topped with custard and lightly whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Apple Snow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Pare, core, and slice the apples.

  2. Stew the apples in a little water until soft enough to press through a colander.

  3. Sweeten the apples to taste and transfer them to a deep glass dish.

  4. Let the apples cool.

Make the custard

  1. Prepare a soft custard with the milk, egg yolks, and sugar, flavored with lemon or orange.

  2. Pour the custard over the cooled apples.

Top and serve

  1. Whip the egg whites to a stiff froth with the powdered sugar.

  2. Heap the whipped egg whites lightly over the 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 + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 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
Provide the fruit base, and stewing softens them into a purée that sets the bottom layer.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a soft custard that enriches the dish.
Egg whites
Whip into a stiff froth that forms the light, airy topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding richness and body.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites to a stiff froth. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold stiff peaks so the topping stays airy. Any trace of fat or yolk in the bowl can stop them from whipping fully, and under-whipped whites will deflate and sink into the custard.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, 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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