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Dessert

Cranberry and Raisin Pie

A fruit pie filled with cranberries and raisins, sweetened with sugar and thickened with flour, baked in a double crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cranberry and Raisin Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick and stone the raisins.

  2. Wash the cranberries.

  3. Prepare a pie crust, then roll it out, sprinkling with flour.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the raisins, cranberries, sugar, and flour.

  2. Add the butter to the mixture and stir well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the filling into the crust.

  2. Cover with the top crust.

  3. Bake until golden 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cranberries
Provide tart flavor and bright acidity that balances the sugar.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps soften the cranberries as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the juices released during baking so the filling sets rather than running.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that give the filling a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Thickening the filling. Flour must be evenly mixed into the fruit and sugar so it can absorb released juices as the pie heats. Uneven mixing leaves dry pockets and runny patches, and the starch needs enough heat to thicken fully.

“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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