Skip to main content
Dessert

Traxsparext Pie

A lemon custard pie topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Traxsparext 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.

Make the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

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

  3. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Stir in the flour and lemon extract.

  5. Line pie pans with pastry and pour in the mixture.

  6. Bake until set.

Make the meringue and finish

  1. Whip the egg whites until soft peaks form, then gradually add 4 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the baked pie and return to the oven.

  3. Brown the meringue slightly before serving.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set and add richness and colour.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they give the meringue its light, airy structure.
Flour
Thickens the filling so it holds a sliceable body after baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, added gradually, stabilises the whipped meringue.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture in the filling.
Lemon extract
Provides the main lemon aroma and flavour of the filling.

The step that matters

Adding the sugar to the egg whites. Sugar should be added gradually to whipped whites so it dissolves into a stable foam. Adding it all at once or too late can leave the meringue weak, grainy, or prone to weeping liquid.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, 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.

You might also like

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