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Dessert

Fruit Pie

Fruit pie made with preserves, almonds, lemon peel, sugar, butter, eggs, and almond essence, baked and topped with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Fruit Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately warm oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Line a pie plate with the pie crust and spread with preserves.

  2. Sprinkle chopped almonds and candied lemon peel over the preserves.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, melted butter, egg yolks, egg whites, and almond essence until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture over the preserves and almonds in the pie plate.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  2. Once cooled, sprinkle powdered sugar on top.

  3. Serve with cream.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Strawberry + almondtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together433 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Add richness and help the filling set firm when baked.
Egg whites
Give the filling structure and lift as they set in the oven.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly while baking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the filling a tender texture.
Strawberry or raspberry preserves
Provide fruity sweetness and a moist layer beneath the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg-based fillings firm as the proteins coagulate with heat. Underbaking leaves a runny center, while overbaking can make it tough and cracked.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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