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Dessert

Marlborough Pie

A simple pie made with applesauce, egg, butter, sugar, and milk, baked without an upper crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Marlborough 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

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

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the apple sauce, egg, butter, sugar, and milk.

  2. Stir the mixture well until fully combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie dish and bake without an upper crust.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Sets the filling as it heats, giving it a custard-like structure.
Milk
Adds liquid and richness, softening the filling while its proteins help it set.
Apple sauce
Adds moisture and body, and gives the filling its fruity flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Baking until just set. Egg proteins set as the filling heats. Overbaking tightens them too far, which can make the custard curdle, weep or turn grainy.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

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