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Dessert

Apple and Rice Meringue

A dessert of boiled apples, sweetened rice, and whipped egg whites topped with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Apple and Rice Meringue

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cook the apples

  1. Peel, core, and cut the apples into pieces.

  2. Place the apples in a saucepan with water, sugar, cloves, and cinnamon.

  3. Boil gently until soft.

  4. Remove the apples from the saucepan.

  5. Let the syrup boil down to 3 tablespoons.

  6. Strain the syrup over the apples.

Make the rice

  1. Boil the rice.

  2. Drain the rice.

  3. Add milk, powdered sugar, and lemon rind to the rice.

  4. Cook until the rice absorbs all the milk.

  5. Let the rice cool.

  6. Remove the lemon rind from the rice.

  7. Mix in the egg yolks.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a serving dish, create a shallow wall of rice.

  2. Place the apples in the center of the rice wall.

  3. Cover the apples with whipped egg whites mixed with powdered sugar.

  4. Sprinkle with more sugar.

  5. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 15 minutes until browned.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Cinnamon + ricetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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 body and tartness that contrasts with the sweet rice.
Rice
Forms the creamy base and shallow wall that holds the apples.
Milk
Cooks into the rice, adding moisture and a soft, creamy texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the rice custard-like base, adding richness and helping it set.
Egg whites
Whipped to form a light meringue that puffs and browns in the oven.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the rice and meringue and helps the meringue brown.

The step that matters

Cover the apples with whipped egg whites. Egg whites must be whipped to stiff peaks so they trap air and hold their shape. Underwhipped whites will deflate and weep in the oven instead of forming a light, browned meringue.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, clove, cinnamon, rice, milk, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, clove, cinnamon, rice, milk, 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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