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Dessert

Cream Jelly Pie

A pie made with eggs, sugar, cream, quince or currant jelly, and butter, baked and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

Cream 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

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

  2. Beat the egg yolks and whites separately.

Make and bake

  1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

  2. Pour the mixture into a prepared pie crust.

  3. Bake until set, then cover with meringue.

  4. Return to the oven to brown the meringue.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Quince + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard and add structure, richness and moisture; whites are whipped for the meringue.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the meringue hold its shape and brown.
Rich cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the filling a smooth, tender texture.
Quince or currant jelly
Adds fruity sweetness, tartness and aroma to the custard filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender mouthfeel in the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until set, then cover with meringue. Egg proteins set with gentle heat. If the custard is overbaked, the proteins tighten too far, so the filling can curdle or weep liquid.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cream, butter. 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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