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Dessert

Butter Scotch Pie

A sweet pie made with flour, brown sugar, sweet milk, egg yolks, butter, vanilla, and topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Butter Scotch Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Stir flour and brown sugar together in a bowl.

  2. Add sweet milk, beaten egg yolks, butter, and vanilla; mix well.

  3. Cook the mixture in a double boiler until thickened.

Assemble and finish

  1. Prepare two baked under crusts and fill them with the mixture.

  2. Whip the egg whites until stiff, then add sugar and spread over the pie.

  3. Place the pie in the oven to brown.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Flour
Thickens the custard filling so it sets smoothly when cooked.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help thicken the filling as it cooks.
Brown sugar
Provides the sweetness and caramel flavor that defines butterscotch.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue that forms the topping and browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich texture and butter flavor in the filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until thickened. Starch from the flour must be fully heated to swell and thicken the custard. Cooking gently in a double boiler helps prevent scorching and lumps, and the filling should be thick before it goes into the crust.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, milk, egg, 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.

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