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Apple Meringue Pie

A pie with a butter‑lard crust filled with sweetened apple sauce and topped with a stiff meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apple Meringue Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Chop the lard into the flour.

  2. Mix the chopped lard and flour with ice-water to form a stiff paste.

  3. Roll the dough thin.

  4. Baste the rolled dough with one-third of the butter.

  5. Sprinkle lightly with flour.

  6. Roll up the dough.

  7. Roll out the dough again, thinner than before.

  8. Baste the rolled dough with half the remaining butter.

  9. Sprinkle with flour.

  10. Roll up the dough.

  11. Repeat this process one more time.

  12. Refrigerate the dough for one hour.

  13. Cut the dough into two pieces.

  14. Reserve one piece for another pie.

Fill and bake

  1. Line two pie dishes with the dough.

  2. Fill the lined dishes with sweetened apple sauce seasoned with nutmeg.

  3. Bake until just done.

  4. Remove the pies from the oven.

Top with meringue and serve

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff, adding one tablespoon of sugar for each egg.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pies.

  3. Flavor the meringue with rose-water or lemon essence.

  4. Beat the flavored meringue until it holds a peak.

  5. Spread the meringue ¾ inch thick on each pie.

  6. Close the oven door until the meringue is set, being careful not to scorch it.

  7. Serve cold.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough, giving the pastry its body once rolled and baked.
Butter
Basted and folded between rolled layers, it creates flaky separation in the pastry.
Lard
Chopped into the flour, it shortens the dough so it bakes tender and crisp.
Apple sauce
Forms the moist, sweet filling that sets the pie's body and flavor.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar, they form the foam that gives the meringue its volume and set.

The step that matters

Close the oven door until the meringue is set, being careful not to scorch it.. Meringue is egg white foam set by gentle heat. Too much heat or time browns and toughens its surface, while too little leaves it soft and weeping.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sauce, 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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