Name: Date Pie
Ingredients: 1 scant cup currants; 1 cup dates, pitted and chopped; 1 cup water; 1 cup brown sugar; Juice and rind of 1 lemon

Why it works: Currant and dates work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 139 recipes. Both carry acetoin, which smells butter, cream. The science ↓

Date Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

In a saucepan, combine currants, dates, water, brown sugar, and lemon juice and rind.
Bring the mixture to a boil, then strain it.
Add the strained juice back to the mixture and place it in a covered dish overnight.

Bake

Bake with a top and bottom crust.

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.

Currant + datestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together139 recipes

Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Dates + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together985 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,270 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Dates + lemontop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together213 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Currants: Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit flavor to the filling.
Dates: Add body, moisture, and natural sweetness that thickens the filling as it cooks.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness, moisture, and a rich caramel flavor to the filling.
Lemon: Adds acidity and bright aroma that balance the sweetness of the fruit and sugar.