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Dessert

Mulberry Pie

A fruit pie made with fresh mulberries, lemon juice, sugar, short pastry crust, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mulberry Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. In a clean enamelled saucepan, combine mulberries, lemon juice, and sugar.

  2. Bring to a boil, then simmer gently for 30 minutes.

  3. Allow to cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Line a pie dish with short pastry and pour in the mulberries.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the pastry is pale brown.

  3. Whip the egg whites until stiff and pour over the fruit.

  4. Return to the oven until set like foam.

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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar 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

Mulberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and the bulk of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the tartness of the fruit and lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the fruit flavour.
Egg whites
Whipped and baked on top, they set into a light, foamy topping.
Short pastry
Forms the crust that holds the fruit and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Return to the oven until set like foam. Egg whites set when their proteins coagulate with heat. Baking too long can make the meringue-style topping dry, toughen it, or brown it too far, so watch it closely as it firms.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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