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Dessert

Apple Meringue

A dessert of stewed apples topped with meringue and served cold with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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. Stew the tart cooking apples until smooth and soft.

  2. Sweeten the apples to taste.

Make the meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Add ½ cup sugar to the egg whites and beat again.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the meringue over the apples in the serving dish, forming little mounds.

  2. Serve cold with cream.

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

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Apple + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,089 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 cooking apples
Provide the main fruit body and tart flavour that balances the sweet meringue.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the meringue its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and stabilises the whipped egg white foam.
Cream
Adds richness and cool moisture when served alongside the cold dessert.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth. Egg whites must be whipped until stiff without deflating, since the foam supplies the meringue's lightness. Any trace of fat or yolk can stop them whipping fully, and sugar added too early can slow foam formation.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, 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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