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Dessert

Apple Meringue Pudding

A baked apple dessert topped with a sweet meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Apple Meringue Pudding

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.

Prepare the apples

  1. Prepare the apples as for a pie and stew until almost a pulp.

  2. Sweeten and spice to taste.

  3. While the apples are hot, gradually stir in the egg yolks.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gradually add 2 tablespoons of sugar and the almond extract.

  3. Spread the meringue over the baked apples quickly and evenly.

  4. Return the dish to the oven and brown the meringue slightly without opening the oven door.

  5. Serve hot or cold, as preferred.

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 + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Apple + almondtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Stewed apples
Provide the moist, soft base that the custard-like layer and meringue sit on.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the apple mixture, giving it a custard-like body.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms the light, airy meringue topping.
White sugar
Sweetens the apples and, when added to the whites, stabilizes the meringue.

The step that matters

Spreading the meringue over the hot apples. Meringue must go on quickly and evenly while the apples are still hot and before the whites deflate, so it stays airy and seals to the base. Opening the oven door during browning can make it collapse or weep.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, almond. 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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