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Dessert

Caramel Pie

A sweet pie with a caramel filling made from sugar, butter, eggs, jam, and vanilla, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Caramel Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the egg yolks, jam, and vanilla extract, then mix well.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the filling into the pie crust.

  2. Bake until set.

  3. Top with whipped cream before serving.

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 + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and give the filling richness and a tender texture.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the filling and set it when baked; whites whipped stiff add lightness.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, creamed with butter, helps it hold air.
Jam
Adds fruit sweetness, acidity and flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff whites trap air that gives the filling lift. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring or deflating the whites makes the pie dense and less airy after baking.

“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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