Skip to main content
Dessert

Baked Watermelon

A chilled watermelon topped with meringue and baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Baked Watermelon

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the watermelon

  1. Cut the watermelon in half and scoop out the pulp with a spoon, creating symmetrical egg-shaped pieces.

  2. Place the pieces on a platter and chill in the refrigerator until very cold.

Make and add the meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites with a generous pinch of salt until light and fluffy.

  2. Stir in 1 teaspoon of powdered sugar for each egg white.

  3. Thickly cover the chilled watermelon with the meringue, letting it reach the edge of the dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the dish on a thick board and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until the meringue is lightly colored.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the meringue topping and sets and browns in the oven.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps it stay stable and browns it lightly.
Watermelon
Serves as the chilled, moist base under the meringue.

The step that matters

Chilling the watermelon until very cold. A cold base keeps the watermelon firm and cool when the meringue goes into the oven, so the fruit does not turn watery or overcook while the meringue sets and colors.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes