Why it works: Apple and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,706 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Apple Meringue
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the apples
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Peel and quarter the apples.
In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the apples, cooking until tender.
Make the meringue
In a bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Gradually add the sugar to the egg whites, continuing to beat until glossy.
Bake and serve
Spread the meringue over the cooked apples.
Bake until the meringue is browned on top.
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.
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Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- Cook down to a tender, moist base that the meringue sits on.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps soften the apples as they cook.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the meringue and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites to a glossy finish.
- Eggs
- Whites whip into a foam that sets and browns to form the meringue topping.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be whipped to stiff peaks with air trapped in them; underbeaten or greasy whites won't hold their shape, and overbeating makes them dry and grainy. Adding sugar gradually helps the foam stay stable.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, 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.
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