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Dessert

Orange Pie

A pie made with orange rind, juice, eggs, butter, sugar, nutmeg, milk, and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,230 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Orange 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, combine the grated orange rind, orange juice, egg yolks, butter, sugar, nutmeg, and enough milk to fill the pie plate.

  3. Pour the mixture into the pie crust.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gradually add 4 tablespoons of sugar until glossy.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pie filling.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until the meringue is golden 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. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

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

  4. Orange + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling and enrich it into a custard-like set.
Egg whites
Whip into stiff peaks to form the airy, browning meringue topping.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and bright citrus flavour to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, whipped with the whites, stabilises the meringue.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer filling texture.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then add the sugar gradually. Whites under-beaten or sugar added too fast will not hold a stiff, glossy foam, so the meringue may weep or collapse in the oven. Adding sugar slowly lets it dissolve and stabilise the foam.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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