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Dessert

Apple Meringue Pudding

A baked pudding of stewed apples folded with egg yolks, spices, and butter, topped with a meringue and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. While the apples are still hot, mix in the nutmeg, cinnamon, butter, and the well-beaten yolks of the eggs.

  2. Add sugar and lemon juice if needed, and beat until light.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish.

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

Top and serve

  1. Remove from the oven.

  2. Cover with a meringue made from the egg whites, powdered sugar, and flavoring.

  3. Brown the meringue slightly.

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the apple base, while whites form the meringue topping.
Stewed apples
Provide the moist, fruity base of the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the apple base.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and helps the beaten mixture hold its lightness.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue and dissolves easily into the whites.

The step that matters

Browning the meringue. Meringue sets and browns quickly at the end of baking, so it can scorch or weep if left too long. Brown it only until lightly coloured, since the sugar caramelises at high heat.

Swap the apple

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

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

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