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Dessert

Apple Meringue Pudding

A baked apple pudding topped with meringue and served cold with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Meringue Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the pudding

  1. Combine the hot stewed apples, butter, nutmeg, and cinnamon in a bowl.

  2. Sweeten to taste.

  3. Stir in the egg yolks one at a time until light.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

  5. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes.

Make the meringue and finish

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gradually add 2 tablespoons of sugar and bitter almond flavoring to the whites.

  3. Remove the pudding from the oven.

  4. Cover the pudding with the meringue.

  5. Return the pudding to the oven to brown slightly.

  6. 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.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Stewed apples
Provide the moist, flavorful fruit base that gives the pudding its body.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and set the custard, while whites whip into the meringue topping.
White sugar
Sweetens the apple base and helps the custard and meringue brown.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the apple base and keeps the dish from sticking.

The step that matters

Browning the meringue. Meringue must be beaten until stiff and then browned briefly. Undercooked meringue can weep or stay pale, while overbaking can make it tough and dry. Watch it closely in the oven.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, nutmeg, cinnamon, almond. 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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