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Dessert

Fannie's Silver Pie

A baked potato and lemon pie topped with meringue and jelly strips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fannie's Silver 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.

Prepare the filling

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

  2. In a bowl, combine the grated potato, lemon juice, lemon rind, beaten egg white, and cold water.

  3. Line a pie plate with crust and pour the mixture into it.

  4. Bake until done.

Make the meringue and finish

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites with the sugar and rose water until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the meringue over the baked pie and return it to the oven.

  3. Bake until the meringue is light brown.

  4. Top with strips of jelly before serving.

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. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Lemon + rosetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Potato
Grated potato thickens the lemon filling and gives it a smooth, custard-like body.
Lemon juice and rind
Provides the sharp acidity and bright aroma that flavour the filling.
Egg white
Helps bind and set the filling as it bakes.
Egg whites (meringue)
Whipped into stiff peaks, they form the airy topping that browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps it stay stable and brown lightly.

The step that matters

Beat the meringue to stiff peaks. Egg whites need to be whipped until firm peaks form so the meringue holds its shape and bakes into a light, airy topping. Under-whipped whites collapse and weep.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, egg, sugar, rose. 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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