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Dessert

Apple Meringue Pie

A pie of sliced apples topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Pare and slice the apples thinly.

  2. Stew the apples with ½ cup cold water in a kettle to prevent burning.

Bake the pie

  1. Cover pie plates with the rich pie crust.

  2. Fill the crust with the stewed apples, leaving ¼ inch at the top.

  3. Bake until the crust is brown.

Add meringue and serve

  1. Make meringue by beating the egg whites and adding 1 tablespoon sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pie and return to the oven to brown.

  3. Serve cold.

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

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

  2. Egg + sugartop 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

Apples
Provide the main fruit filling, softened by stewing before baking.
Egg whites
Beaten into a meringue that sets and browns on top of the pie.
Sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps it hold its beaten structure.
Rich pie crust
Forms the base that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Spread the meringue over the pie and return to the oven to brown. Beaten egg white foams can deflate or weep if handled roughly or left too long before baking. Spreading the meringue so it touches the crust edge helps it seal and brown evenly.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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