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Dessert

Sour Cream Pie

A custard pie made with eggs, sour cream, sugar, raisins, and topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Sour Cream 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. Separate the eggs, saving the whites of 3 eggs for the topping.

  3. In a bowl, beat the 4 egg yolks well.

  4. Add the sour cream to the egg yolks and beat again.

  5. Mix in the sugar, butter, and raisins, beating until the raisins are well distributed.

Top and bake

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

  2. Spread the beaten egg whites on top of the pie filling.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until the top is 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the filling, while whipped whites form the light, set topping.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tang, giving the filling a creamy, rich texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth texture in the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the topping brown as it bakes.
Raisins
Provide chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the filling.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites need to be whipped until stiff so they trap air and hold their shape. Under-whipped whites will deflate and sink into the filling, while over-whipped whites turn grainy and dry.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

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