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Dessert

Cranberry Pie

A pie with a corn starch and sugar filling mixed with boiling water, molasses, salt, and cranberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cranberry Pie

two pies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mix corn starch and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Pour in boiling water and stir until boiling.

  3. Add molasses, salt, and additional sugar, and mix well.

  4. Fold in chopped cranberries.

Assemble the pies

  1. Use this mixture as a filling for two pies with upper and lower crusts.

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 + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Corn + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together644 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the boiling liquid into a glossy, sliceable filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tart cranberries.
Molasses
Adds deep, caramel-like flavour and sweetness to the filling.
Cranberries
Provide tartness, flavour and the bulk of the filling.

The step that matters

Stir the starch mixture until it boils. Cornstarch only thickens fully once the liquid reaches a boil and the starch granules swell and gel. Stopping early leaves a thin filling that runs when the pie is cut.

“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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