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Dessert

Cranberry and Raisin Pie

A fruit pie made with cranberries, raisins, sugar, water, vanilla, and flour in a tart crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine raisins, cranberries, sugar, and water.

  2. Boil the mixture until well done.

  3. Add vanilla and flour mixed with a little water to the mixture.

Assemble the pie

  1. Prepare a tart crust and fill it with the cranberry and raisin mixture.

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

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

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

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

  4. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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
Add sweetness and chewy body to the filling.
Cranberries
Provide tartness and a bright, fruity flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it thicken as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the filling sets.

The step that matters

Add the flour mixture. Flour mixed with a little water must be stirred in smoothly so it does not form lumps. It thickens the filling as the liquid cooks, so the pie sets properly when cooled.

“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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