Skip to main content
Dessert

Transparent Pie

A custard pie made with sugar, egg yolks, butter, vanilla, baked in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Transparent Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter and let it cool slightly.

  2. Add the sugar to the butter and beat until combined.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into the pie crust.

  2. Bake until set.

  3. Add the beaten egg whites on top.

  4. Return to the oven and brown slightly.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves into the butter to sweeten the filling.
Egg yolks
Set the filling as it bakes and add richness and structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Vanilla
Adds aroma that complements the sweet, rich filling.
Pie crust
Holds the filling and forms the base of the pie.

The step that matters

Let the butter cool slightly before adding the egg yolks. Hot butter can scramble beaten egg yolks, leaving bits of cooked egg instead of a smooth mixture. Cooling it slightly lets the yolks blend in evenly, so the filling sets smoothly when baked.

“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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes