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Dessert

Oeange Pie

A custard pie made with orange juice, pulp, rind, eggs, sugar, milk, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,696 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Oeange Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the juice and sliced pulp of the oranges with the grated rind.

  3. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks with the sugar until well combined.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

Make the filling

  1. Add the milk to the egg yolk mixture and mix well.

  2. Fold the orange mixture into the egg yolk mixture, then gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Line a pie dish with puff pastry and pour the mixture into it.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until set and golden.

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 + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Yolks add richness and help set the filling, while whipped whites add lightness.
Oranges
Juice and pulp supply the main citrus flavor and acidity to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the acidity of the orange juice.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the custard-like filling.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky crust that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites. Whites hold air only when beaten to stiff peaks, and deflating them by overmixing makes the filling dense. Fold gently so the pie rises and sets light instead of heavy.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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