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Dessert

Caramel Pie

A caramel pie with preserved damsons, milk, flour, vanilla, and a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Caramel Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat the egg yolks until very light, then add the damsons, milk, flour, and vanilla.

  3. Mix well and pour into lined pie pans.

Bake and top

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until done.

  2. For the meringue, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form, then gradually add the sugar and beat until stiff.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pie and brown slightly in the 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and carries flavor into the filling.
Eggs
Yolks thicken and enrich the filling; whites whip into the meringue for lift.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, when whipped with whites, stabilizes the meringue.
Preserved damsons
Supply the main fruit flavor and body to the filling.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the filling.
Flour
Helps thicken the filling and give it structure as it bakes.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites into the meringue. Whites must reach stiff peaks and sugar must dissolve gradually; under-beaten or greasy whites won't hold air, and the meringue will weep or slump in the oven.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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