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Dessert

Apple Meringue

A dessert of boiled apples topped with a sweet meringue and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Apple Meringue

Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Apple Meringue

Ingredients

Directions

Make the apple base

  1. Boil the apples until thoroughly done.

  2. Strain the apples through a colander.

  3. Add sugar and nutmeg or cinnamon to taste.

  4. Place the apples in a dish.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Stir in 1 cup of sugar and the lemon juice.

  3. Cover the apples with the meringue mixture.

  4. Bake until light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve cold, with or without sauce.

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.

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.

  1. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Egg whites
Beaten into a stiff foam that forms the light, airy meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and, dissolved into the whites, helps stabilise the meringue.
Apples
Cooked and strained to form the soft, moist base under the meringue.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to a stiff froth. Egg whites must be beaten until they hold stiff peaks, trapping air that gives the meringue its lift. Under-beaten whites collapse, and the topping turns dense and weepy in the oven.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, nutmeg, egg, lemon. 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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