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Dessert

Butter Scotch Pie

A sweet pie made with brown sugar, sweet milk, butter, flour, egg yolks, vanilla, and topped with a browned egg white mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Butter Scotch Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Boil brown sugar, sweet milk, butter, flour, and egg yolks until thick. Add vanilla to taste.

  2. Fill two baked pie crusts with the mixture.

Top and bake

  1. Beat egg whites and mix in powdered sugar for the topping.

  2. Spread the egg white mixture on top and brown 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. Milk + buttertop 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

Brown sugar
Provides sweetness and the caramel-like butterscotch flavor.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as it cooks and add richness.
Flour
Helps thicken the filling so it sets into a sliceable custard.
Egg whites
Whipped with powdered sugar to form a topping that browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and smooth texture in the filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until thick. Egg yolks and flour thicken as the mixture heats, but overheating can curdle the yolks and make the filling grainy. Stirring steadily over heat and stopping once it thickens keeps it smooth.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

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