This recipe comes from Mrs. Rorer’s Philadelphia Cookbook, a small unassuming brown book that I had grown used to seeing on my grandmother’s basement bookshelf. Only years later, after I had inherited boxes of those same books, did I sit down and begin to appreciate the coolness of it.

Originally published in 1886, it’s full of strange and wonderful recipes. The pistachio ice cream, for example, uses clover for green coloring. Should you find yourself without clover, lawn grass may be substituted. There are even beautiful, handwritten recipes scattered throughout.

  

See? It’s the coolest.

This recipe for Apple Snow results in a simple yet satisfying, easy to make dessert. It only takes around 15 minutes, including prep time, and the finished dessert is a light, fluffy, barely sweetened bowl of apple flavored fluff. 

Apple Snow Recipe

makes 6 servings  –  prep time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

• 6 good-sized apples
• 1 cup of sugar
• Juice of one lemon
• Whites of six eggs

Pare, core and steam the apples until tender, then press them through a sieve and put aside to cool; when cold, add the sugar and lemon juice. Beat the whites of the eggs to a very stiff froth, and add the apples to them by large spoonfuls, beating all the while. Serve immediately, in glasses.

Now, I went fully old school with this one. I pressed the apples through a sieve, as per the instructions, and beat the eggs in a copper bowl, rather than use a hand mixer.

To me, there is something inherently wonderful about making such a simple recipe as it was originally intended. Unlike the whir of the electric mixer, the metal-on-metal of the whisk and copper forms a sort of tenuous thread backwards in time. It’s easy to imagine a cook whipping up such a recipe in the kitchen of a fine Victorian home around the turn of the century.