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Dessert

Chess Pie

A custard pie made with egg yolks, sugar, butter, and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter 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 ↓

Chess 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together until well combined.

  3. Melt the butter and mix it into the egg yolk and sugar mixture.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake for 30-40 minutes until set.

  2. Top with meringue and return to the oven until the meringue is golden.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + sugartop 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

Egg yolks
Set the filling into a custard as they cook, adding richness and structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps create a smooth, tender texture when beaten with the yolks.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture in the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Egg yolks firm as they heat, so pulling the pie at the right point keeps the filling creamy. Overbaking can make it grainy or cause it to crack.

“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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