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Easter Grain Pie

"This fruity ricotta and wheat pie is dense and moist and very good. A real Italian treat for Easter."

This recipe’s ingredient list has no crust or pastry, so it bakes more like a fruit dish than a pastry pie.

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,632 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

The recipe

2 - 9 inch pies
Prep45 min
Cook45 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Put the wheat berries and 5 cups water in a saucepan with the salt. Bring to a boil, then simmer about 45 minutes, until tender. Drain and let cool.

  2. Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease two 9-inch pie pans with the shortening. Line each pan with one pastry, and cut the leftover pastry into strips for the lattice tops.

  3. In a large bowl, beat the eggs and white sugar until smooth. Stir in the ricotta, vanilla, cinnamon, lemon zest and orange zest until combined.

  4. Fold the cooled wheat berries and the candied fruit into the ricotta mixture until evenly distributed.

  5. Divide the filling between the two pastry-lined pans and smooth the tops. Weave the pastry strips over each pie to form a lattice and trim the edges.

  6. Bake for about 45 minutes, until the lattice is golden and the center of the filling reaches 160°F (71°C) and is set.

  7. Cool the pies completely on a rack. Dust the tops with the confectioners' sugar just before serving.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Cinnamon + orangetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Vanilla + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  4. Wheat + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together537 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together35,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,031 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, egg, sugar, ricotta cheese, cinnamon, lemon, orange):

  1. Blueberryabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Figabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, egg, sugar, ricotta cheese, cinnamon, lemon, orange. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).