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 ↓
Raisin Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the raisin filling
Stew the seeded raisins until soft.
Thicken the raisin mixture with flour, like gravy.
Sweeten the mixture to taste and set aside.
Make the custard
Beat the whole egg and egg yolk with brown sugar in a bowl.
Bake and finish
Lay the stewed raisins on the pie crust and dredge them with flour.
Pour the egg-sugar mixture over the raisins.
Bake the pie in a single crust at 350°F (175°C) until set.
Whip the remaining egg white and mix it with powdered sugar to make icing.
Brown the icing lightly on top.
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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Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Provide the main filling body and sweetness once stewed soft.
- Flour
- Thickens the raisin mixture so it holds its shape when sliced.
- Eggs
- Bind the egg-sugar mixture and set during baking to give a custard-like texture.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and a molasses flavour to the filling and egg mixture.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the egg white icing so it whips into a smooth topping.
The step that matters
Thicken the raisin mixture with flour. Flour must be cooked into the stewed raisins to thicken them; if the filling stays thin, the egg mixture poured over it will run and the pie will not slice cleanly.
“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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