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Dessert

Cottage Cheese Filling

A sweet cottage cheese filling for a pie, baked with a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 ↓

Cottage Cheese Filling

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl.

  2. Mix the cottage cheese, melted fat, sugar, vanilla, milk, and salt with the beaten egg yolks.

Bake and finish

  1. Place the mixture in a one-crust pie shell and bake at 300°F (150°C) until set.

  2. Make a meringue with the egg whites and cover the baked pie.

  3. Brown the meringue 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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cottage cheese + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together239 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Cottage cheese + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together601 recipes

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

  5. Cottage cheese + vanillatop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together107 recipes

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

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

Cottage cheese
Forms the body of the filling, giving a soft, creamy, sliceable texture when baked.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and help it set into a firm custard as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the tang of the cottage cheese.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the mixture so it bakes smooth and tender.
Melted fat
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Egg yolks set by coagulating with heat. Baking too long or too hot makes the filling weep, curdle, or turn rubbery, so it should be removed once the centre is just firm.

“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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