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Dessert

Transparent Pie

A buttery pie with a sugar and egg yolk filling, topped with beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Transparent Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Cream the butter and mix it with the sugar until well combined.

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

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake slowly at 300°F (150°C).

  2. Beat the egg whites and spread them on top of the pie as desired.

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. Sugar + eggtop 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 richness and a tender, smooth texture to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps give it a soft, set body when baked.
Egg yolks
Thicken and set the filling as they cook, while adding richness.
Egg whites
Whipped and spread on top, they add light volume and browning.

The step that matters

Bake slowly at a low temperature. Egg yolks set gently as they heat. Too much heat makes the filling curdle, weep, or turn grainy, so a slow, low bake keeps it smooth and evenly set.

“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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