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 ↓
Jelly 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Beat the butter until creamy.
Make and bake the filling
Mix the egg yolks, sugar, and jelly into the butter until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a prepared pie crust.
Bake until set.
Top and finish
Beat the egg whites with enough sugar to make a thick icing.
Spread the icing over the pie after baking.
If desired, brown the icing slightly in the oven.
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.
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the filling as it sets, and whites whip into the meringue-style icing.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a tender, creamy texture to the filling.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the whipped egg white icing.
- Jelly
- Provides the fruity flavour and sweetness in the filling.
The step that matters
Baking the filling until set. Egg yolks set as they heat, so underbaking leaves a runny filling while overbaking can make it weep or turn rubbery. Watch for a filling that is firm at the edges and only slightly wobbly in the centre.
“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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