Apple Snow
3 large tart apples. 1/2 cup powdered sugar. 3 egg whites. Stew apples quartered, and when tender strain and mash through sieve. Whip eggs dry and stiff, beat in sugar and then the apples. Pile on crystal dish, garnish with apple jelly and serve with one pint of boiled custard made from yolks. This can be served with orange or any other flavor and garnished with the fruit. Apples peeled, cored and filled with preserved ginger, orange marmalade, pineapple or cherries, put in baking dish with syrup and baked make a lovely dish to serve with meats.
An uncooked meringue folded with apple pulp, served cold. The apple is stewed but the egg white never is, and that is the problem with the dish as printed.
- Why it failsThe whipped whites are beaten stiff, sweetened, mixed with cooled apple and served without any heat step. Raw egg white can carry Salmonella, and nothing in the method brings it to a temperature that would kill it. A current recipe using pasteurised whites or a cooked meringue should be used instead.
- The accompanying custardThe pint of boiled custard made from the yolks is cooked, but a stirred custard is easily curdled and old recipes rarely say how far to take it. It is done at about 175-180F, when it coats a spoon; above that the yolk proteins scramble.
- "Powdered sugar"In American books of this period the term is unstable: it can mean what we call confectioners' sugar or a fine granulated sugar. Confectioners' sugar contains cornstarch, which dulls a meringue slightly; superfine granulated dissolves cleanly.
- Straining the applesThe recipe says only to stew the apples quartered and press them through a sieve; it does not specify peeling or added water. A drier, more concentrated pulp helps, since excess liquid is what makes this style of dessert weep and collapse.
- YieldThree apples and three whites make roughly four small servings. The mixture cannot be held for long before it separates.
- The second dishThe closing sentence is a separate recipe: apples peeled, cored and filled with preserved ginger, marmalade, pineapple or cherries, set in a baking dish with syrup and baked. No oven heat or time is given.