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Dessert

Spiced Apple a LA Lyman

A baked apple dish spiced with cinnamon and salt, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,287 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Spiced Apple a LA Lyman

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Wipe, core, and peel the apples, then arrange them in a baking dish.

  2. Mix sugar, cinnamon, and salt, and fill the cavities of the apples with this mixture.

Bake and top

  1. Add water to the dish and bake until the apples are soft, basting often with the syrup.

  2. Remove from the oven, cool slightly, and pile meringue on top of each apple.

  3. Return to the oven and bake for eight minutes.

  4. Chill and serve with sugar and cream.

Make the meringue

  1. To make the meringue, beat the egg whites until stiff, gradually adding powdered sugar while continuing to beat.

  2. Finally, add vanilla to the meringue mixture.

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. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Apple + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,501 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Soften during baking and hold the spiced filling while releasing juices that form the syrup.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that sets when baked, forming the meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and syrup and helps the meringue stay glossy and stable.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the whipped egg whites, sweetening and stabilizing the meringue.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and flavor to the apples.

The step that matters

Beating the meringue until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to stiff peaks with sugar added gradually; under-whipped or greasy whites will not hold their shape or set properly on the apples when baked.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Blueberryfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, sugar, egg, vanilla. 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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