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Dessert

Butterscotch Pie

A sweet pie with a butterscotch filling of sugar, egg yolk, butter, flour, maple syrup, topped with a frosted egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Butterscotch 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.

Make the filling

  1. In a pint cup, combine ¼ cup sugar, 1 egg yolk, 2 tablespoons butter, and 2 tablespoons flour, then mix all ingredients together.

  2. Pour in enough maple syrup to fill the cup.

Bake and brown

  1. Bake with one crust at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Make a frosting with the beaten and sweetened egg white, spread it over the top, then return to the oven to brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + maple syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,252 recipes

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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 yolk
Thickens the filling and adds richness to the custard-like texture.
Flour
Thickens the filling so it sets firm rather than runny.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it set with a glossy texture.
Egg white
Whipped and sweetened, it forms a meringue topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Returning the pie to the oven to brown the frosting. Meringue-style toppings can weep or brown unevenly if baked too long or too hot. Watching the color closely lets the top brown without the sugar burning and the filling overheating.

“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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