Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Orange 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream the butter and sugar together until light.
Beat in the orange juice, grated rind, lemon juice, and grated peel.
Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.
Fill two pastry shells with the mixture and bake until set.
Top and finish
Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar.
Spread the meringue over the baked pies and return to the oven for 3-4 minutes.
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.
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Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,746 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together24,377 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the filling as they set, while whites whip into the meringue topping.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps soften the butter into a light creamed base.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to add richness and a tender texture to the filling.
- Orange
- Provides the juice and aromatic rind that give the filling its main flavor.
- Lemon
- Adds acidity that brightens the citrus flavor and balances the sweetness.
- Powdered sugar
- Dissolves easily into the whipped whites, sweetening and stabilizing the meringue.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be whipped to stiff peaks before the powdered sugar is added gradually, since under-whipped or greasy whites will not hold the meringue's shape or brown properly.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, lemon, nutmeg):
- Vanillafits about as well
- Orangethe original
- Figfits about as well
- Raisinfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, lemon, nutmeg. 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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