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 ↓
Blackberry Flummery
Ingredients
Directions
Place the blackberries in a pot and add sugar to taste.
Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes.
Once the blackberries have softened, thicken the mixture with a little flour.
Continue stirring until the mixture is fully thickened.
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
- Blackberries
- Provide the fruit base, along with juice and flavour that form the body of the dish.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the natural tartness of the blackberries.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking juices as its starch swells with heat, giving the mixture a set texture.
The step that matters
Stirring while the flour thickens. Flour starch can clump and scorch on the bottom of the pot if it is not stirred. Continuous stirring keeps it dispersed and heated evenly, so the mixture thickens 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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