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Dessert

Wigwam.

A custard pie made with oranges, eggs, sugar, cream, butter, and corn starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

Wigwam.

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. Juice the oranges and set the juice aside.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the sugar until well combined.

  2. Add the cream, butter, orange juice, and corn starch to the egg mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until set, similar to a lemon pie.

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. Cream + buttertop 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. Orange + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together586 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the filling its structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the orange juice.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat, contributing richness and a silky mouthfeel to the custard.
Corn starch
Thickens the filling so it holds its shape when sliced.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs thicken as they heat, but overbaking makes the custard curdle and weep, while underbaking leaves it runny. Bake until the filling is set at the edges and only slightly wobbly in the center.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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