Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Washington Pie

A pie made with grated apples mixed with egg whites, sugar, and lemon juice, layered over a plain jelly cake.

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

Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple Washington Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the topping

  1. Grate the apples.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg whites until thick and white.

  3. Add the sugar and lemon juice, and mix until well combined.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture between layers of Washington pie (a plain jelly cake).

  2. Heap some of the mixture on top of the pie.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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
Whipped into foam, they trap air that gives the mixture lift and a light, airy texture.
Apples
Grated apple adds moisture and fruity flavour to the mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps stabilise the egg white foam.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until thick and white. Egg whites need to be beaten enough to hold air, which gives the mixture its lift and light texture. Underbeaten whites stay runny and won't hold their shape, while overbeaten whites turn dry and grainy and can collapse when mixed.

Swap the apple

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

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

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

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes