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Dessert

Caramel Pie

A custard-like pie with caramel filling made from eggs, butter, jam, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,050 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Caramel 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.

Get started

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

Make the filling

  1. Beat the egg yolks and mix with the butter, jam, and vanilla.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the yolk mixture.

Line and bake

  1. Prepare a rich pastry and line a pie tin with it.

  2. Pour the filling into the pastry and bake until set.

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. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Egg and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 27,347 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the filling; whipped whites add air for a lighter set.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture in the filling.
Dark jam or preserves
Provides sweetness, moisture, and the dark flavour of the filling.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. The whites hold air from whipping. Stirring vigorously deflates that foam, so the filling bakes denser and less light. Fold gently, just until no white streaks remain.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Lemonfits about as well
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Raspberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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