Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓
Raisin Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Make the filling
Cover the raisins with water and add the sugar.
Let the mixture simmer for 30 minutes.
Thicken the mixture with the flour dissolved in a little water.
Assemble and bake
Fill a pie crust with the raisin mixture and cover with a top crust.
Bake until golden brown.
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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Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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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
- Raisins
- Provide the main filling, with sweetness and a soft, chewy texture as they soften in water.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps draw out the raisins' flavor during simmering.
- Flour
- Starch thickens the cooking liquid into a filling that holds its shape when sliced.
The step that matters
Thickening the mixture with the flour dissolved in water. Flour added dry to hot liquid clumps and can stay raw-tasting. Dissolving it first lets the starch disperse evenly, and heating it causes the starch granules to swell and thicken the filling smoothly.
“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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