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Dessert

Blackberry or Whortleberry Pie

A pie filled with blackberries or whortleberries, sugar, butter, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Blackberry or Whortleberry 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. Line a deep pie plate with the pie crust.

  3. Fill the crust half full with berries.

  4. Add ½ cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon of butter, and ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon.

  5. Fill the plate with more berries and additional sugar to taste.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover with another layer of pie crust.

  2. Bake for one hour.

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 + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Blackberries
Provide the juicy, tart fruit that forms the body of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and draws juice out of the berries as they heat.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the filling.
Cinnamon
Adds a warm, sweet aroma to the berries.
Pie crust
Holds the filling in its shape and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Fill the crust in layers, with sugar in each. Berries release juice as they bake, and sugar draws out even more. Spreading the sugar through the fruit helps the juice thicken evenly and keeps the filling from pooling or boiling over.

“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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