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Dessert

Whortleberry Pie

A pie made with whortleberries, boiled in water, sweetened, and baked with a double crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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

  1. Pour just enough boiling water over the whortleberries to prevent sticking.

  2. Boil for one minute.

  3. Sweeten to taste.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie plate lined with pie crust.

  2. Dredge the top with flour.

  3. Cover with another layer of pie crust.

  4. Bake until golden.

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 + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 main fruit flavor, tartness, and juices that form the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the berries.
Flour
Helps thicken the berry juices as the pie bakes.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven for structure and color.

The step that matters

Bake until golden. The crust needs enough heat to brown through the Maillard reaction, and the filling must bubble so the flour can thicken its juices. Pulling the pie too early leaves it runny and pale.

“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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