Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Cranberry Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
In a bowl, mix the sugar and flour together.
Assemble
Add the water and cranberries to the mixture.
Line a pie tin with crust and pour in the cranberry mixture.
Cover with another layer of crust.
Bake
Bake slowly until the crust is golden.
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.
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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 most of the filling's bulk.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the cranberries' sharp tartness.
- All-purpose flour
- Thickens the juices released by the cranberries as the pie heats.
- Pie crust
- Encloses the filling and browns to form the pie's structure and color.
The step that matters
Baking slowly until the crust is golden. A low oven gives the flour time to thicken the cranberry juices into a set filling while the crust browns, rather than leaving the filling runny or the crust pale.
“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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