Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Pie

A baked pie with an orange and lemon custard filling topped with a whipped egg white glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

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

  2. Beat the butter and sugar together until well combined.

  3. Add the egg yolks, orange juice, and lemon juice, and mix well.

  4. Pour the mixture into a pie crust without a top crust. Bake.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Mix the beaten egg whites with powdered sugar.

  2. Spread the egg white mixture over the pie.

  3. Return the pie to the oven for a few minutes to brown.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the filling and whites, whipped, form the light topping.
White sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the butter cream into a smooth base.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the filling.
Orange and lemon juice
Provides acidity and citrus flavor that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks; under-whipped whites weep and slump, while the sugar stabilizes the foam so the topping stays airy when it browns.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Raisinfits about as well

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

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes