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Dessert

Butter-scotch Pie II

A pastry filled with a butter and scotch mixture of brown sugar, water, flour, eggs, and butter, topped with meringue.

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 II

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. In a saucepan, combine brown sugar and hot water; bring to a boil.

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

  3. Remove from heat and beat in the butter.

  4. Pour the mixture onto well-beaten egg yolks.

Assemble and bake

  1. Bake a shell of flaky pastry.

  2. Pour this filling into the baked pastry shell.

  3. Top with meringue made from egg whites and remaining sugar.

  4. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 15 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 + 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

Brown sugar
Provides the sweetness and the caramel-like butterscotch flavor of the filling.
Flour
Thickens the hot sugar mixture so the filling sets into a sliceable custard.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and set the filling, while whites whip into the meringue topping.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded flavor to the filling.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps the whites hold a stable, glossy foam.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture onto well-beaten egg yolks. Adding hot filling to yolks too quickly can scramble them. Pour slowly while whisking so the yolks warm gently and thicken the filling smoothly.

“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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