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Dessert

Meringue of Apples

A baked dessert of sliced apples topped with sweet meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,706 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Meringue of Apples

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the apples

  1. Quarter the apples, remove the cores, and slice them.

  2. In a saucepan, stir the apples with the butter and ½ cup of powdered sugar over medium heat for 15 minutes.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then add 2 tablespoons of jam to taste.

Assemble and bake

  1. Form the apple mixture into a pyramid shape in the center of a dish.

  2. Whip the egg whites until firm, then gradually add ¼ cup of powdered sugar.

  3. Spread the meringue over the apples, sprinkle with more sugar, and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes until pale yellow.

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 + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 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

Apples
Break down into a soft, sweet filling that holds the pyramid shape when cooled.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the cooked apples.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that sets into the pale, airy meringue topping.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the apples and helps stabilize the whipped egg white meringue.
Jam
Adds extra sweetness and fruit flavor to the cooled apple filling.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites and adding the sugar. Egg whites must be whipped until firm before sugar is added gradually, so the foam holds its shape. Under-whipped or greasy whites will not set into a stable meringue topping.

Swap the apple

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

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

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