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Dessert

Orange Pie

A custard pie made with orange zest, juice, eggs, sugar, butter, milk or cream, baked in a puff pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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. Grate the rind from the oranges and squeeze out the juice.

  2. Beat the eggs and stir in the powdered sugar.

  3. Add the melted butter, orange juice, and milk or cream to the egg mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a puff pastry crust.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set, like a custard.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Orange + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the filling into a custard as they cook, giving it body.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the filling and dissolves easily into the beaten eggs.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a smooth, tender texture.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and softness, making the custard silkier.
Oranges
Provide the citrus acidity and aroma from the juice and rind.
Puff pastry
Forms the crust that holds the filling while it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake until set, like a custard. Egg proteins set as they heat, so the pie is done when the centre wobbles slightly but no longer runs. Overbaking can make the custard grainy and weep liquid.

Swap the orange

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

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

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