Name: Strawberry Pie
Ingredients: 1 pint large strawberries; 1 cup white sugar; 1 cup heavy cream; pie crust

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Strawberry Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

1 pint large strawberries
1 cup white sugar
1 cup heavy cream
pie crust

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the crust

Make a rich pie crust and line a pie tin.
Bake the crust in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

Assemble and serve

Wash and hull the strawberries, then sprinkle sugar over them and stir gently.
Pour the strawberries into the baked pie crust.
Whip the cream and spread it over the top of the pie.
Chill the pie in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before serving.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Strawberries: Provide the fruit flavor and bulk that make up the pie's filling.
White sugar: Sweetens the berries and draws out their juice as they sit.
Heavy cream: Whipped, it forms a light, creamy topping that adds richness and fat.

“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.