Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Meringue Apple Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Bake the pie
Make and bake the apple pie as you would normally.
Top and serve
Before removing from the oven, cover the pie evenly with the meringue made from the beaten egg whites and powdered sugar.
Brown the meringue lightly.
Serve the pie cold.
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.
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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 foam that sets into the meringue topping's light, airy structure.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the meringue and helps stabilize the whipped egg white foam.
The step that matters
Brown the meringue lightly. Sugar and egg proteins brown quickly under heat through the Maillard reaction and caramelization. Too little heat leaves the meringue pale, while too much or too long scorches the sugar and turns it bitter, so watch it closely.
“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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