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Apple Meringue Pudding

A baked pudding of stewed apples topped with a browned meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Meringue Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the apple base

  1. Stew the apples.

  2. Stir in the butter, sugar, and spice while the apples are hot.

  3. Gradually add the yolks.

  4. Beat the mixture until light.

  5. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

  6. Bake the dish for 10 minutes.

Top with meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites.

  2. Gradually add 2 tablespoons of sugar and bitter almond to the whites.

  3. Spread the meringue over the baked pudding.

  4. Brown the meringue slightly in the oven.

  5. Serve cold with cream.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the pudding, while whites whip into a stable meringue topping.
Apples
Provide the moist, fruity body of the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky texture to the apple base.

The step that matters

Gradually add the sugar to the whites. Adding sugar slowly to whipped egg whites dissolves it fully and builds a stable, glossy foam. Adding it too fast or with any trace of yolk can stop the whites from reaching stiff peaks, and the meringue may weep or collapse in the oven.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, nutmeg, cinnamon, almond. 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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