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Dessert

Raisin Pie

A pie filled with raisins boiled in water, sugar, vinegar, corn starch, nutmeg, butter, and salt, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Raisin Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Boil the raisins in water for 15 minutes.

  2. Add sugar, vinegar, corn starch dissolved in a little cold water, nutmeg, butter, and salt.

  3. Let the mixture boil for another 15 minutes.

Bake

  1. Pour into one or two pie crusts as desired.

  2. Bake until the crust is 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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Corn + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Raisin + corntop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together180 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Provide the main body, sweetness and chewy texture of the filling.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid as it boils, giving the filling a set, glossy body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet raisin filling.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the filling.

The step that matters

Dissolve the corn starch in cold water before adding it. Corn starch clumps if added dry or to hot liquid. Dissolving it in cold water first lets the starch grains disperse evenly, so they can thicken the filling smoothly when it boils.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, corn, nutmeg, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, corn, nutmeg, butter. 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.

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