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Apple Meringue Pies

A pie filled with stewed apples and topped with a sweet meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 Pies

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel and slice the apples, then stew and sweeten them until soft.

  2. Mash the apples smooth and season with nutmeg. Optionally, stew some lemon peel with the apples and remove it when cold.

Bake the filling

  1. Fill your pie crust with the apple mixture and bake at 350°F (175°C) until just done.

Make and top with meringue

  1. For the meringue, whip the egg whites until stiff, adding 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar for each egg.

  2. Flavor the meringue with rose water or vanilla, then beat until it holds its shape.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pie, about ¾ inch thick, and return it to the oven until the meringue is set.

  4. If the meringue darkens too much, sift powdered sugar over it once cooled.

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. 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. Lemon + rosetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + rosetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the main body and soft, sweetened filling of the pie.
Eggs
Whites whip into a foam that sets into the meringue topping.
Powdered sugar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites and sweetens the meringue.
Pie crust
Holds the apple filling while it bakes.

The step that matters

Beating and setting the meringue. Egg whites must be whipped until stiff and the sugar fully incorporated so the foam holds its shape. Under-beaten whites collapse, and overbaking can make the meringue weep or darken, so it should be watched until just set.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, nutmeg, egg, sugar, rose):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Quincefits about as well

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