Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Meringue

A layered dessert of stewed apples, buttered bread, and meringue on a pie crust.

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

Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Apple Meringue

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble

  1. Line a deep baking pan with pie crust.

  2. Add a layer of stewed apples.

  3. Place a layer of buttered sliced bread on top.

  4. Add another layer of stewed apples.

Bake and top

  1. Bake until done.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and spread over the top.

  3. Return to the oven to brown the meringue.

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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms the meringue topping and browns in the oven.
Stewed apples
Provide moisture and tart-sweet fruit flavour as the main filling.
Pie crust
Forms the base that holds the layers while they bake.
Sliced bread
Soaks up juices from the apples so the filling sets rather than running.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold firm peaks; under-whipped whites collapse and weep, while the foam sets and browns properly when baked.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Datesfits better
  2. Pumpkinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, 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.

You might also like

Apple Bread PuddingApple Bread Pudding21 recipesApple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipes