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Dessert

Orange Pie

A custard pie made with orange juice, peel, sugar, lemon, butter, corn starch, eggs, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Orange 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. Dissolve corn starch in the orange juice.

  2. Add the beaten yolks.

  3. Combine water, sugar, and butter in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  4. Pour the boiling mixture over the yolk and corn starch mixture.

  5. Return to the saucepan.

  6. Add lemon juice and simmer until thickened.

  7. Pour the filling into a pie shell.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites and add 1 tablespoon sugar.

  2. Spread over the pie filling.

  3. Brown the pie in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together586 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the filling into a smooth, sliceable custard as it cooks.
Eggs yolks
Enrich and thicken the filling, adding richness and a custard-like set.
Egg whites
Whip into a meringue topping that sets and browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the meringue stay glossy and tender.
Orange juice
Provides the main citrus flavor and liquid for the filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the orange flavor and balances sweetness.

The step that matters

Return the boiling mixture to the saucepan and simmer until thickened. Cornstarch only thickens fully when it reaches a simmer after being mixed with the yolks; stopping early leaves a runny filling, while overheating can curdle the egg yolks.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, butter, corn, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, butter, corn, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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