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Dessert

Orange Pie

A pastry shell filled with orange custard and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light.

  3. Beat in the orange juice and lemon juice and peel until well combined.

  4. Add the beaten eggs and mix until smooth.

  5. Fill the pastry shells with the mixture.

  6. Bake the filled pastry shells until set.

Make the meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gradually add the powdered sugar to the beaten egg whites.

Finish and serve

  1. Spread the meringue over the baked pies.

  2. Return the pies to the oven for 2-3 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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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
Set the filling into a soft custard and add richness and structure.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the filling.
White sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the creamed butter become light.
Orange juice
Provides the main citrus flavor and some acidity.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright aroma from the juice and grated peel.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps it hold a stable, glossy foam.

The step that matters

Adding the sugar to the egg whites. Adding powdered sugar gradually to beaten whites dissolves it evenly and builds a stable foam that holds its peaks. Adding it all at once can leave the meringue weepy or collapsed.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. 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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