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 ↓
Ripe Currant Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the filling
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix mashed currants, sugar, water, flour, and egg yolks until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a pie crust.
Make the meringue
In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Gently fold powdered sugar into the egg whites.
Bake and serve
Spread the meringue over the pie filling.
Bake until the meringue is golden brown.
Let cool before serving.
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).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Currant + eggtop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,734 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Currant + flourtop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,077 recipes
Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mashed ripe currants
- Provide the main fruit flavour and tart body of the filling.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps balance the tartness of the currants.
- Flour
- Thickens the currant mixture so it sets rather than running.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and help bind and set the filling.
- Egg whites
- Whip into a foam that forms the meringue topping.
- Powdered sugar
- Stabilises the whipped egg whites and sweetens the meringue.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold stiff peaks to form a stable foam. Under-whipped whites will weep and slump, while the powdered sugar folded in gently helps keep the foam from collapsing during baking.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, egg):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg. 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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