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Apple with Meringue Crust

A baked apple dish topped with a stiff meringue crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Apple with Meringue Crust

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Stew the apples with moist sugar, cold water, and lemon rind until soft; place in a pie dish.

Make the meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites with salt until stiff, then gently fold in the castor sugar.

Bake and serve

  1. Heap the meringue on top of the apples and bake in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C) until golden brown.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that sets into the light, airy structure of the meringue.
Castor sugar
Stabilises the whipped whites and sweetens the meringue, giving it a glossy, crisp finish.
Apples (in the method)
Form the moist, tender fruit base that the meringue sits on.
Moist sugar
Sweetens the apples and adds a light caramel flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Folding in the castor sugar. Overbeating or deflating the stiff egg whites makes the meringue weep or bake dense. Adding sugar gradually and folding gently keeps the foam stable so it holds its shape and browns evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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