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Dessert

Cranberry Pie, No 1

A fruit pie made with cranberries, sugar, water, butter, and a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cranberry Pie, No 1

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 filling

  1. Pick over and wash the cranberries.

  2. Cook the cranberries with half as much water as there are berries for 15 minutes.

  3. Add an equal amount of sugar to the water and let steep until done.

Assemble the pie

  1. Sprinkle sugar on the bottom crust of the pie.

  2. Layer the cooked cranberries on the crust, sprinkle with sugar, and dot with butter.

  3. Pour in 2 tablespoons of water and lightly dredge with flour.

  4. Twist narrow strips of dough and cross them over the top in a diamond pattern.

Bake

  1. 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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cranberries
Supply the tart fruit that cooks down into the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart berries and balances their sharpness.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor through the filling and crust.
Flour
Lightly coats the fruit, helping thicken the juices as the pie bakes.

The step that matters

Bake until golden. The filling needs enough time in the oven to thicken as the cranberries release juice, and the crust needs to brown fully. Pulling the pie too early can leave a runny filling and pale, doughy crust.

“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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