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Dessert

Custard Pie

A custard pie filled with peaches and pineapple, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 168 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Custard Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the custard

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

  2. In a bowl, combine milk, 5 eggs, and 8 tablespoons sugar.

  3. Pour the mixture into pie crusts and bake until set.

Make the fruit filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine mashed peaches, grated pineapple, and 3 tablespoons melted butter.

  2. Simmer until thick, then cool and stir in 6 beaten egg yolks.

  3. Pour the fruit mixture into the baked pie crusts.

Top and brown

  1. In a separate bowl, beat 6 egg whites until stiff, then gradually add 3 tablespoons sugar and flavoring.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pies and brown in the oven 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. Peach + pineappletop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together168 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  4. Milk + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together885 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard and thicken the fruit filling, while whites whip into a meringue.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that sets into a soft custard with the eggs.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and meringue and stabilizes the whipped egg whites.
Peaches
Add fruit flavor and moisture to the filling.
Pineapple
Adds tart, fruity flavor and moisture to the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the fruit filling.

The step that matters

Simmer the fruit mixture until thick. The fruit must be cooked down enough to thicken before the egg yolks are stirred in. Adding yolks to a hot mixture can scramble them, and a loose filling will make the pie runny once it sets.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

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