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Dessert

Red Apple Sauce Meringue

A baked apple sauce topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Red Apple Sauce Meringue

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 filling

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the hot apple sauce with nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon juice, and grated lemon rind.

  3. Add butter and beaten egg yolks, then beat until light.

  4. Gradually add granulated sugar while continuing to beat.

Bake and top

  1. Transfer the mixture to a covered baking dish and bake for 10 minutes.

  2. Remove from the oven and top with meringue made from egg whites and powdered sugar.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Apple sauce
Provides the main body and moisture of the filling.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the filling as they set during baking.
Egg whites
Whipped into the meringue topping, giving it volume and structure.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilize the beaten yolks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing to a smooth, tender texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the apple sauce.

The step that matters

Beat in the sugar gradually. Adding granulated sugar slowly while beating helps it dissolve and keeps the mixture smooth, so the egg yolks blend in evenly rather than becoming grainy or separating.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon, butter, egg, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon, butter, egg, sugar. 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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