Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓
Apple Meringue
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the base
Put a pint of apple sauce, made of tart cooking apples, slightly sweetened, into a pudding dish.
Make and bake the meringue
Beat the whites of four eggs to a stiff froth.
Stir into the whites a cup and a quarter of sugar, flavor with a very little extract of lemon (a few drops only), and spread over the apple sauce.
Bake twenty or twenty-five minutes.
Make the custard and serve
Make a custard of the four egg yolks and a pint of milk, sweeten to taste and flavor with vanilla.
Serve the meringue very cold in the dish in which it is baked, with the custard as a sauce in a sauceboat or glass pitcher.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
What these numbers assume: 7 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 1 cup (125g) all-purpose | 455 |
| Potato | 1 medium (173g) baked | 161 |
| Milk | 1 cup (244ml) whole | 149 |
| Apple Sauce | 1 medium (182g) | 95 |
| Egg | 1 large egg (50g) | 78 |
| Lemon | juice of 1 lemon (48ml) | 12 |
| Cinnamon | 1 tsp ground (2.6g) | 6 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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. See the original page.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
-
Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
-
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg whites
- Beaten to a stiff foam, they set in the oven and give the meringue its light structure.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the milk into a custard and add richness to the sauce.
- Apple sauce
- Forms the moist, tart fruit base under the meringue.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid of the custard, which the yolks thicken.
The step that matters
Beating the whites to a stiff froth. Whites must be whipped until they hold firm peaks, because the foam traps air that sets in the oven. Under-whipped whites collapse and weep, leaving a flat, watery topping.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, milk, potato, flour, egg, lemon, cinnamon):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Orangefits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, milk, potato, flour, egg, lemon, cinnamon. 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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