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Dessert

Orange Pie

A fruit pie with orange and lemon juice, rind, and a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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.

Prepare the filling

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

  2. Beat the butter and sugar together until well combined.

  3. Add the egg yolks, orange juice, orange rind, lemon juice, and lemon rind; mix well.

  4. Pour the mixture into a pie crust without a top crust and bake until set.

Make the meringue and finish

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gradually add powdered sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the baked pie and return to the oven for a few minutes to brown.

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
Yolks thicken the filling as it sets, and whites whip into the meringue topping.
White sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the butter-egg mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that gives the filling a smooth, tender texture.
Orange
Provides the main citrus flavour and aroma, with juice adding liquid and rind adding oils.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be whipped until stiff and sugar added gradually so the foam holds its shape and bakes into a stable, glossy meringue instead of weeping or collapsing.

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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