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 ↓
Whortleberry Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Pour just enough boiling water over the whortleberries to prevent sticking.
Boil for one minute, then sweeten to taste.
Assemble and bake
Pour the mixture into a pie plate lined with puff pastry.
Dredge the top with flour, cover with more pastry, and bake until golden.
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
- Whortleberries
- Provide the tart flavor and juicy body of the filling.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and balances the berries' tartness.
- Flour
- Dusted over the berries, it soaks up juices and helps thicken the filling.
- Puff pastry
- Forms the flaky crust that rises and browns in the oven.
The step that matters
Adding just enough boiling water. Enough water loosens the berries so they do not stick and scorch in the pan, while too much makes the filling watery and slow to set. The berries are then boiled briefly to soften them before sweetening.
“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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