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Dessert

Butter-scotch Pie

A sweet pastry pie with a brown sugar and butter filling baked in a flaky crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Butter-scotch 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 the filling

  1. Bake a shell of flaky pastry.

  2. Combine brown sugar and hot water in a saucepan, bring to a boil.

  3. Thicken the mixture with flour and salt mixed with cold water.

  4. Remove from heat and beat in the butter.

  5. Pour the mixture onto the well-beaten egg yolks and mix well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour this filling into the baked pastry shell.

  2. Top with meringue made from the egg whites and remaining sugar.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 15 minutes to finish cooking.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Thickens the hot sugar mixture so the filling sets into a firm, sliceable custard.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and set the filling, while whites whip into the meringue topping.
Brown sugar
Provides the caramel-like sweetness and flavor that defines the butterscotch filling.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot mixture onto the egg yolks. Egg yolks can scramble if added to very hot liquid all at once. Stirring well while pouring gradually brings the yolks up in temperature so the filling stays smooth and thickens evenly.

“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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