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Dessert

Orange Meringue Pie

A pie with orange and lemon filling topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 Meringue Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Grate the rind and juice the oranges and lemon.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, stir together the sugar and flour.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks and melted butter to the sugar mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pie pan lined with pie paste.

Bake and brown

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until set.

  2. Spread the beaten egg whites on top, sweetened with fine sugar.

  3. Return to the oven and brown slightly.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the filling as they heat and set.
Egg whites
Whip into a sweet topping that sets and browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and the meringue topping.
Flour
Thickens the filling so it holds its shape when cut.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smoother texture.
Oranges
Provide the main flavour, juice and aroma, with gentle acidity.

The step that matters

Bake until the filling is set before adding the topping. Egg yolks and flour thicken the filling as they heat. If it is underbaked, it stays loose and can soak into the meringue, making the pie watery and soggy.

Swap the orange

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

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

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