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Dessert

Delicate Puff Pie

A puff pie made with eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla, baked until risen and lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Delicate Puff 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

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

  2. Separate the egg whites from the yolks.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the yolks and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Beat the butter until creamy and frothy.

  3. Mix the butter into the yolk and sugar mixture, stirring well.

  4. Add vanilla flavoring to taste.

  5. Line pie plates with pastry and pour in the mixture.

  6. Bake until the pies rise and are light.

Top and finish

  1. Beat the egg whites and add 2 tablespoons of sugar and a few drops of flavoring.

  2. Spread the egg white mixture over the top of the pies.

  3. Return the pies to the oven and brown delicately.

  4. Cut the pies while hot and serve on plates, but do not eat until cold.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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 + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the filling, while whipped whites lighten the topping and help it rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and topping, and helps the egg white topping brown.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the filling rich and tender.
Vanilla flavoring
Adds aroma that rounds out the sweetness of the filling and topping.

The step that matters

Return the pies to the oven and brown delicately. The sugar in the whipped egg white topping browns quickly, so too much heat can over-colour it before the filling is fully set. Watch closely and stop once it is lightly golden.

“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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