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Dessert

Damson Caramel Pie

A pie filled with a caramelized mixture of damson preserves, butter, egg yolks, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Damson Caramel 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

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

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, beat the butter, damson preserves, egg yolks, and sugar until very light.

  2. Pour the mixture into the prepared pastry.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until set and lightly browned.

  2. Serve hot or cold.

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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth texture in the filling.
Damson preserves
Provides fruit flavour, sweetness, tartness and moisture to the filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken and set the filling as it bakes, giving it a firm, custard-like body.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until set and lightly browned. Egg yolks set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the filling runny while overbaking can make it grainy or curdled. Look for a filling that is firm at the edges with only a slight wobble in the centre, then let it finish setting as it cools.

“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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