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Dessert

Orange Pie

A baked pie with orange zest, juice, sugar, flour, butter, egg yolks, and a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Orange Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Grate the rind of one orange and juice two large oranges.

  2. In a bowl, stir together the sugar, flour, and melted butter.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and orange juice.

  4. Cook the mixture until thick.

Assemble and bake

  1. Once cooled, fill a baked pie shell with the orange mixture.

  2. For the meringue, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Gradually add the granulated sugar to the egg whites.

  4. Add a few drops of lemon juice and vanilla to the meringue.

  5. Spread the meringue over the pie.

  6. Brown the meringue slightly in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + vanillatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,371 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the orange filling as they set during cooking, giving it a rich, custardy body.
Flour
Stabilises the filling by thickening the orange mixture so it holds its shape when sliced.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that forms the meringue topping, giving it volume and lightness.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, in the meringue, helps the whipped whites stay stiff and glossy.
Orange juice
Supplies the main citrus flavour and liquid that the filling is built around.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the filling until thick. The starch in the flour and the egg yolks must be cooked fully to thicken the filling. Undercooked, the filling stays runny and may not set once cooled.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Blueberryfits better
  2. Blackberryfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, egg, lemon, vanilla. 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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