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Dessert

Raisin Pie

A raisin pie with a meringue topping baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Raisin 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.

Make the filling

  1. Cook the raisins until tender.

  2. Add sugar, crushed crackers, and egg yolks to the cooked raisins.

  3. Line pie pans with crust.

  4. Pour the filling into the crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

Make the meringue and finish

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add 2 tablespoons sugar and vanilla.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pie and return to the oven to brown.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together782 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Raisins
Provide the main body and sweetness of the filling as they soften when cooked.
Crackers
Crushed, they thicken the raisin filling so it sets rather than running.
Egg yolks
Enrich and help thicken the filling as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms the meringue topping and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Baking the filling until set. Egg yolks and crushed crackers thicken only when heated enough, so underbaking leaves a runny filling, while overbaking can make it weep or toughen.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, vanilla):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Blueberryfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, vanilla. 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.

More raisin pie recipes

Lemon 28Apple 17Cranberry 7Molasses 6Sour Cream 4 See all 104 →

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