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Dessert

Chess Pie

A sweet custard pie with a buttery crust, made from sugar, butter, milk, flour, corn starch, egg yolks, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chess 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 filling

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk, flour, corn starch, and egg yolks. Mix until well combined.

  4. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites with a little sugar until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the beaten egg whites on top of the pie filling.

  3. Bake until the top is slightly 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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, creamed with butter, adds a light, fluffy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and traps air when creamed with sugar for a tender filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set and add richness and colour.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the filling.
Flour
Helps thicken the filling and gives it body as it bakes.
Corn starch
Thickens the filling, giving a smooth, sliceable set.

The step that matters

Baking until the top is slightly browned. Underbaking leaves the filling runny because the egg yolks and starches have not set, while overbaking can make the custard dry, cracked, or rubbery. Watch for a lightly browned top and a centre that is set but still slightly wobbly.

“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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