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Dessert

Butter Scotch Pie

A sweet pie with a butter and sugar filling topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Butter Scotch 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. In a saucepan, combine brown sugar, butter, flour, egg yolks, and hot water.

  2. Boil the mixture until it thickens.

Prepare the meringue

  1. Prepare a baked pastry shell.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form, then gradually add powdered sugar.

Assemble and bake

  1. Spread the meringue over the thickened filling.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until the meringue is 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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 of the filling.
Flour
Thickens the filling as it boils, giving it a smooth, sliceable body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the filling, adding richness and a custard-like set.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the filling, giving it a rich, smooth mouthfeel.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that forms the meringue topping, adding volume and light texture.

The step that matters

Boil the filling until it thickens. Flour starch only thickens fully once the mixture reaches a boil and is stirred, so stopping early leaves a runny filling. Egg yolks also need heat to set, but overheating can curdle them.

“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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