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Dessert

Butter Scotch Pie

A sweet pie made with brown sugar, flour, water, and eggs, baked in a crust with a butter topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By United Methodist Church (Grayville, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Butter Scotch Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Stir together two cups brown sugar and three tablespoons flour.

  2. Add yolks of three eggs.

  3. Reserve the whites for topping.

  4. Add butter the size of an egg and two cups of hot water.

  5. Cook until thick.

Assemble and bake

  1. Put into a baked crust.

  2. Put whites on top and set in oven until brown.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

582Calories
19 gProtein
6 gFat
108 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Waternot in our table0

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

By United Methodist Church (Grayville, 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and the caramel-like flavor that defines butterscotch.
Flour
Its starch swells with heat and thickens the filling.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the filling as they set with heat, and whites are reserved for the topping.
Butter (in the method)
Adds fat for richness and smoothness in the filling.

The step that matters

Cook until thick. The filling must be cooked long enough for the flour starch to swell and the egg yolks to set. Undercooked filling stays runny and will not slice cleanly.

“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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