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 syrup
Pare and quarter the apples.
Make a syrup by boiling the water and sugar together.
Drop a third of the apples into the boiling syrup and cook until clear but not broken.
Remove the apples to a pudding dish, draining the syrup back into the saucepan.
Add half of the remaining apples to the syrup and cook until all are done.
If the syrup is not thick enough, cook it a few moments longer without burning.
Make the meringue and bake
Make a meringue by beating the egg whites until light, then gradually add the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and rose extract.
Spread the meringue over the apples in the dish.
Set the dish in a cool oven with the door open and let the meringue dry for 20 minutes.
Serve cold with cream.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Lemon + rosetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,174 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 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
- Apples
- Provide the fruit body and tartness that the syrup and meringue sit on.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a foam that sets into the light meringue topping.
- Powdered sugar
- Dissolves into the whipped whites to stabilise and sweeten the meringue.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the syrup that the apples are cooked in.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the sweet apples and meringue.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites and adding the sugar. Whites must be beaten until light before sugar is added gradually; underbeaten or greasy whites will not hold a stable foam, so the meringue may collapse or fail to dry properly.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, lemon, rose, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Orangefits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, lemon, rose, 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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