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Dessert

Philadelphia Butter Pie

A custard-like pie made with sweet cream, butter, sugar, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

Philadelphia Butter Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cover a pie plate with crust, as for a custard pie.

Make the filling

  1. Take a piece of butter the size of an egg, two-thirds of a cup of sugar, one cup of sweet cream, and one tablespoon of flour.

  2. Stir butter, flour and sugar together.

  3. Stir in the cream.

  4. Pour into the plate.

Bake

  1. Bake until brown.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

735Calories
20 gProtein
23 gFat
109 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.). 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. See the original page.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Sweet cream
Provides liquid and fat that set into a rich, custard-like filling.
Flour
Thickens the cream so the filling holds its shape when baked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until brown. The record gives no oven temperature or time, so color is the only guide. Baking too briefly leaves the cream and flour mixture unset, while overbaking can make the filling dry and curdled as its proteins tighten.

“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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