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Dessert

Jelly Pie

A pie filled with a sweet cream and jelly mixture topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Jelly Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the egg yolks, sweet cream, sour jelly, vanilla, and flour; mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a single pie crust and bake until done.

Top and finish

  1. Whip the egg whites to make a meringue and cover the pie with it.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vanilla + flourtop 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

Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps give it a tender, creamy body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Sour jelly
Provides the tart, fruity flavour that defines the pie.
Flour
Thickens the filling slightly so it holds its structure when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue that forms a light, lightly browned topping.

The step that matters

Baking the filling until done. Egg yolks set as they heat, so under-baking leaves the filling runny while over-baking can make it grainy or cause it to weep. Judging doneness carefully keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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