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Apple Meringue

A pie with stewed apples topped with meringue, baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Apple Meringue

Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Apple Meringue

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Stew the apples until soft, then sweeten and season to taste.

  2. Place the stewed apples in a pie crust.

Make the meringue

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add sugar until well combined.

  2. Spread the meringue over the apples.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until the meringue is lightly browned.

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

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

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

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

  3. Apple + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,461 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Juicy apples
Provide the main filling, softening into a moist, flavourful base when stewed.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and dissolves into the egg whites to stabilise the meringue.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam to form the airy meringue topping that sets and browns in the oven.
Pie crust
Holds the stewed apple filling in a shaped case while the pie bakes.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to firm peaks, and sugar added gradually, so the foam holds its shape and bakes into a stable, airy meringue rather than weeping or collapsing.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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