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Apple-and-Blackberry Souffle

A baked fruit soufflé made with stewed apples and blackberries topped with a sweet meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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-and-Blackberry Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the fruit

  1. Stew the apples and blackberries with sugar until soft.

  2. Press the mixture through a fine sieve into a pie dish and let it cool.

Make the meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then quickly mix in the caster sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the fruit pulp.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until the meringue is crisp and lightly browned.

  2. Sprinkle pink sugar on top.

  3. Serve hot or 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. Sugar + eggtop 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

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that forms the light, airy meringue topping.
Apples
Cooked to a soft pulp that gives the base its body and fruity flavour.
Blackberries
Add colour, tartness and fruit flavour to the stewed pulp.
Caster sugar
Dissolves into the whipped whites to stabilise the meringue and sweeten the topping.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to a stable foam before the sugar is added. Under-whipped or greasy whites will not hold air, so the meringue will collapse or stay flat. Mix in the sugar quickly to avoid deflating the foam.

Swap the apple

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

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

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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