Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Jelly Meringue 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 crust
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cover the bottom of a pie plate with the pie crust.
Once the crust is done and cold, carefully split it open with a sharp knife.
Fill and layer
Place the bottom crust on a plate and spread it with jelly.
Lay the top crust upside down on the jelly-covered crust and spread it with more jelly.
Make and add the meringue
Make a meringue by beating the egg whites and powdered sugar together until stiff.
Spread the meringue over the top of the pie.
For a larger pie, use 1 additional egg white and 1 more tablespoon of sugar.
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.
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 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
- Pie crust
- Forms the structure that holds the jelly layers in place.
- Jelly
- Supplies sweetness, flavor and moisture to the filling.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to form the foam that gives the meringue its structure.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the meringue and helps stabilize the whipped egg white foam.
The step that matters
Beating the meringue until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks; underbeaten whites stay runny and won't support the topping, while overbeaten whites turn dry and grainy.
“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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