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Dessert

Apple Meringue

A dessert of boiled tart apples folded with beaten egg whites and lemon, topped with meringue and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Apple Meringue

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Apple Meringue

Ingredients

Directions

Make the apple base

  1. Boil the tart apples after peeling and coring them.

  2. Rub the cooked pulp through a colander and sweeten to taste.

  3. Gently stir in the beaten egg whites until combined.

  4. Add the grated lemon rind, lemon juice, or lemon/vanilla extract.

  5. Transfer the mixture to a pudding dish.

Top and bake

  1. Top with the beaten egg whites, sweetened and flavored.

  2. Bake in the oven until lightly colored.

Serve

  1. Serve with cream or custard.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tart apples
Provide the main fruit pulp and tart flavor that forms the base.
Egg whites
Add airy structure to the apple base and build the meringue topping that sets when baked.
Sugar
Sweetens the apple pulp and helps stabilize the beaten egg white meringue.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity and aroma that balances the sweetness of the apples.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stirring too vigorously deflates the beaten whites, so the base loses lightness. Fold gently so the air stays trapped and the mixture rises and sets when baked.

Swap the apple

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

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

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