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Dessert

Orange Pie

A custard pie flavored with orange juice and rind, sweetened with sugar and enriched with eggs and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Orange Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Line a pie plate with pastry and wash the edges.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy.

  2. Gradually add the beaten eggs, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the orange juice and grated rind.

  4. Whip the cream to stiff peaks and fold it into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the pie crust and bake for 20 minutes.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set into a custard when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps create a light, creamy base when beaten with butter.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, and whipped it lightens the filling.
Orange juice
Provides acidity and citrus flavour that gives the pie its character.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped cream gently. Whipped cream holds air that gives the filling lightness. Stirring it vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a denser, heavier pie.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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