Skip to main content
Dessert

Sour Cream Pie

A pie with a butter‑sugar‑flour batter topped with a raisin‑sour‑cream filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sour Cream 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 batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the milk, flour, eggs, warm water, and baking soda; mix well.

  4. Pour the batter into a pie crust.

Add the filling and bake

  1. In another bowl, combine sugar, raisins, sour cream, and egg; mix well.

  2. Pour the filling over the batter in the pie crust.

  3. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until set.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set into a firm custard-like texture as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the batter through its fat content.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to help it rise and lighten during baking.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and a tangy acidity that balances the sweetness of the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Baking for the full time, until the center is set, lets the eggs firm up the custard. Pulling it early can leave a runny middle, while overbaking can make the texture dry and cracked.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, cream, vanilla. 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

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes