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Dessert

Cranberry Pie

A pie filled with simmered cranberries and sugar, topped with a plain crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cranberry Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the cranberry sauce

  1. Pick over the cranberries and wash them in cold water.

  2. Place the cranberries in a pot with enough cold water to cover them and simmer gently for 15 minutes.

  3. Add the sugar and continue to simmer until the cranberries are soft.

  4. Pass the mixture through a sieve using a wooden spoon and let it cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Make a plain pie crust as directed in the recipe for Apple Tarts.

  2. Line a pie plate with the crust, building a rim around the edge.

  3. Fill the crust with the cooled cranberry sauce.

  4. Add strips of crust on top in a diamond pattern and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cranberries
Provide the tart flavor and natural pectin that thickens the sauce as it cools.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the cranberries' sharp acidity.

The step that matters

Let the sauce cool fully before filling the crust. Cranberry sauce thickens as it cools because its pectin sets. Filling the crust while the sauce is still hot leaves it runny, and the heat and moisture can make the bottom crust soggy.

“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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