Skip to main content
Dessert

Papaya Pie

A baked pie with a papaya filling topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Papaya and lemon share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 66 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Papaya Pie

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 crust

  1. Make a bottom pie crust and bake it at 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, lemon juice, and papaya pulp to the mixture.

  3. Pour the filling into the baked pie crust and bake again at 350°F (175°C).

Top with meringue

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add 2 tablespoons of sugar to make a meringue.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pie and brown it in the oven.

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. Papaya + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together66 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Egg + buttertop 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 + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Eggs
Add structure and richness to the filling as they set when baked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, helps give the filling a light texture.
Papaya pulp
Provides the main flavour and moisture of the filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, creamed with sugar to soften the filling.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks to form a light meringue that browns on top.

The step that matters

Whip the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten to stiff peaks before sugar is gradually added so the foam holds its shape. Under-whipped or greasy whites will not hold, and the meringue may weep or fail to brown well.

Swap the papaya

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Papayathe original

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

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes