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Dessert

Stuffed Apples

A baked apple dish filled with dates, raisins, nuts, topped with sugar, butter, and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Apples

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Pare and core the apples.

  3. Stuff the cavities with chopped dates, raisins, and nuts.

  4. Sprinkle the tops with sugar and butter.

Bake and top

  1. Bake until light brown.

  2. Beat the egg whites until very stiff, gradually adding 3 tablespoons of sugar while continuing to beat.

  3. Heap the meringue on top of the baked apples.

  4. Brown slightly in the oven and serve cold.

  5. Whipped cream may be used instead of meringue.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Apple + datestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Dates + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together358 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the main body and structure that holds the stuffing while baking.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff meringue that forms the light, browned topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and, whipped into the egg whites, stabilises the meringue.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the apple tops as they bake and brown.
Dates
Add sweetness and a soft, chewy texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until very stiff. Egg whites hold air only when fully whipped, and sugar added gradually helps keep the foam stable. Under-whipped whites will deflate and make the meringue weep or spread flat in the oven.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (dates, raisin, nuts, sugar, butter, egg, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against dates, raisin, nuts, sugar, butter, egg, cream. 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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