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Dessert

Jam Pie

A jam pie made with a rich pastry crust, rice or beans filling, a layer of jam, whipped cream, and optional nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and nuts work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 100 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Jam Pie

enough rich pastry for 2 pies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare enough rich pastry for two pies.

  2. Line the pans, using one shallow pan.

  3. Fill the lined pan with rice or beans and bake.

  4. Remove the rice or beans after baking.

Assemble

  1. In the larger pie, add a half-inch layer of jam.

  2. Spread whipped cream over the jam.

  3. Place the shallow pie on top and fill it with sweetened and flavored whipped cream.

  4. Optionally, add chopped nuts.

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. Rice + nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Cream + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together886 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Rice + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rich pastry
Forms the sturdy shell that holds the jam and cream filling.
Rice or beans
Weights the pastry during baking so the shell stays flat instead of puffing.
Jam
Adds concentrated sweetness and fruit flavor to the base layer.
Whipped cream
Adds a light, moist, creamy layer that softens the richness of the pie.

The step that matters

Blind-bake the shell with weights. Weights hold the pastry flat while it sets, so the base does not puff or slump. The shell must be fully baked before filling, because a soft base will become soggy once the jam and cream are added.

Swap the nuts

The recipe marks nuts as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, cream):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Peanutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, cream. 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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