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Dessert

Apple Meringues

Baked apples topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Apple Meringues

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel the apples and remove the cores without breaking them.

  2. Place the apples on a dish suitable for serving.

  3. Fill the apples with sugar. Add a bit of butter. Add a pinch of spice on each apple.

  4. Bake the apples until tender, being careful not to let them break.

Make the meringue and finish

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Gently stir in 3 ounces of powdered sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the apples, rounding it well. Lightly brown the meringue in a moderate oven.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 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

Eggs
Whipped whites form a stiff foam that sets into the meringue topping.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the apples and the meringue, and helps stabilise the whipped whites.
Small apples
Form the base that holds the filling and softens as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour into the apples.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to stiff peaks without any trace of fat or yolk. Under-whipped or greasy whites will not hold their shape or set properly, so the meringue can collapse or weep.

Swap the apple

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

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

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