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Apple Snow
Peel and grate one large sour apple, sprinkle over it a cup of powdered sugar as you grate it, to keep it from turning dark; break into this the whites of two eggs, and beat all constantly for half an hour; take care to have it in a large bowl, as it beats up very stiff and light. Heap this in a glass dish and pour around it custard made as follows: Bring one quart of milk to the boiling point, stir in one tablespoon of cornstarch rubbed smooth in a little cold milk, two eggs well beaten, and a half cup of sugar; flavor with vanilla. Let cool before pouring around the snow.
— Mrs. Irving G. Jackson
The snow itself is raw egg white folded with grated apple and never cooked, which is where the recipe fails by current standards. The notes below explain the period language and the specific problem.
- Uncooked egg whiteThe two whites beaten into the apple are eaten raw. Shell eggs can carry Salmonella in the white as well as the yolk, and nothing in this preparation — no heat, no acid strong enough, no sugar syrup — brings them to a safe temperature. A current recipe for apple snow, using pasteurised whites or a cooked meringue method, should be used instead.
- The custard is not the problemThe poured custard has its eggs stirred into milk brought to the boiling point, so it is at least partly cooked; the clear risk sits in the raw white heaped in the middle of the dish.
- "Sour apple"Not spoiled — a tart cooking apple, of the sort then meant by a Greening, a Baldwin or a russet; Granny Smith or Bramley is the modern equivalent.
- Powdered sugarIn American books of this period, powdered sugar usually means finely ground granulated sugar rather than the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar sold today. It is added during grating to keep the apple from browning, since the sugar draws out juice and limits contact with air.
- Half an hour of beatingThat timing assumes a hand whisk or a rotary egg beater against a heavy fruit purée. It is a measure of the equipment, not of any structure that develops over thirty minutes.
- YieldOne large apple, two whites and a quart of custard serves about six in small glasses.
Apple snow belongs to a family of English "snow" desserts going back at least to the sixteenth century, in which beaten egg white was whipped with cream, fruit pulp or wine until it stood in drifts; the name simply describes the look. By the time community cookbooks like this one were being compiled, the dish had settled into a cheap, showy company dessert: one apple, two eggs and a bowl of boiled custard stretched to feed a table, with the mound of white heaped in a clear glass dish so the contrast could be admired. Recipes of this kind are also a reminder of how much of the labour was invisible in print — "beat all constantly for half an hour" was an ordinary instruction in a kitchen where the beating was done by hand. The contributor's name, in the style of the period, is her husband's.