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Dessert

Raisin Pie

A sweet pie filled with raisins, sugar, eggs, vinegar, syrup, water, flour, spices, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Raisin 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the filling

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the chopped raisins, sugar, eggs, vinegar, syrup, water, flour, cloves, cinnamon, and baking soda until well combined.

  3. Melt the butter and add it to the mixture, stirring until smooth.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the filling into one of the pie crusts and cover with the second crust.

  2. Seal the edges and cut slits in the top crust for steam to escape.

  3. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Provide the main body of the filling and concentrated sweetness and chew.
Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set as it bakes.
Flour
Thickens the liquid filling so it holds its shape when sliced.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown at the edges.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic vinegar and syrup to lift and lighten the filling.

The step that matters

Cutting slits in the top crust. Slits let steam escape while the filling heats. Without them, trapped steam can build pressure, lifting or splitting the crust and making the filling bubble out unevenly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar, egg, vinegar, syrup, flour, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, egg, vinegar, syrup, flour, cinnamon. 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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