Name: Cheese Pie
Ingredients: 4 egg yolks; 1 egg white; 4 ½ oz (½ cup) sugar; 4 oz (½ cup) butter, melted; 2 tablespoons powdered sugar; pastry for pie crust

Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Cheese Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
In a bowl, beat together the yolks of 4 eggs, 1 egg white, melted butter, and sugar until well combined.
Pour the mixture into the pie crust and bake slowly until set.
Meanwhile, prepare a meringue by beating the whites of 3 eggs with powdered sugar until stiff peaks form.
Spread the meringue over the baked pie and return to the oven for a few more minutes until lightly browned.

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.

Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

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