Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Cherry Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make the filling
In a pot, scald the pitted cherries in their own juice.
Add sugar to the cherries and mix well.
Pour the cherry mixture into a deep pie plate lined with the bottom crust.
Dredge the top of the filling with flour.
Bake and serve
Cover with the top crust and seal the edges.
Bake in the preheated oven until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbly.
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.
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cherries
- Provide the fruit and juice that form the bulk and flavor of the filling.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps soften the cherries while balancing their tartness.
- Flour
- Thickens the cherry juices as they bake so the filling sets rather than running.
- Pie crust
- Forms the structure that holds the filling and browns to a golden finish.
The step that matters
Dredge the top of the filling with flour. Flour thickens the released cherry juices as they heat. Coating the filling evenly before covering prevents a runny, soupy pie once it bakes.
“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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