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Dessert

Orange Pie

A custard pie with orange zest, slices, and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and orange work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 586 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Orange Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Cream together the powdered sugar and butter.

  2. Mix the corn-starch with a little cold water, then add the boiling water and cook until thickened, stirring constantly.

  3. Pour the thickened mixture onto the creamed butter and sugar.

  4. Grate the peel from half an orange and chop the other half, removing the inner white skin, then add to the mixture.

  5. Add the beaten egg and the juice of one orange to the mixture.

Prepare the filling

  1. Peel and slice another orange thinly, removing seeds and tough white skin.

Bake and finish

  1. Line a pie plate with pastry and bake until just done.

  2. Fill the crust with the custard mixture and orange slices, then bake until the egg is cooked.

  3. For the meringue, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt and powdered sugar until stiff.

  4. Spread the meringue over the pie, sift powdered sugar on top, and return to the oven until slightly colored.

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. Corn + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together586 recipes

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

  2. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Corn-starch
Thickens the boiled water into a smooth custard base.
Egg
Sets the custard as it cooks, giving it body when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms the meringue topping.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the filling.
Orange
Supplies juice, peel and slices for bright citrus flavor and aroma.

The step that matters

Cooking the cornstarch mixture. Cornstarch must be stirred constantly while boiling so it thickens evenly. Starch granules swell and gelatinize only once hot, and unstirred mixture can scorch or form lumps.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, corn, 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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