Skip to main content
Dessert

Pecan Filling

A creamy pecan filling made with sour cream, sugar, pecans, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Pecan Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the filling

  1. Stir sour cream and white sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes.

  3. Add chopped pecans and bring to a boil again.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the well-beaten egg white.

  5. Beat for 1-2 minutes until combined.

Cool and use

  1. Cool in a cold place before spreading between layers.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Pecans + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,280 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Cream + pecanstop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together706 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Sour cream
Adds moisture, richness and a tangy flavor to the filling.
White sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps give it a smooth, thick body as it cooks.
Chopped pecans
Adds crunchy texture and a toasty, nutty flavor to the filling.
Egg white
Thickens and binds the filling as it sets, giving it a light, stable structure.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg white off the heat. The egg white is added to a hot mixture, so it must be well beaten and stirred in off the heat. Gentle stirring spreads it evenly and it thickens without scrambling into lumps.

Swap the pecans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Pecansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, 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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes