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Dessert

Cranberry Pie

A pie made with raw cranberries, molasses, and sugar, topped with a plain crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cranberry Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Assemble the pie

  1. Line a pie dish with Good Plain Paste.

  2. Fill it with raw cranberries.

  3. Add molasses and sugar.

  4. Cover with crust and trim the edges neatly.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Good plain paste
Forms the crust that encloses the filling and holds its juices while baking.
Raw cranberries
Supply the tart flavor and the bulk of the filling, softening and releasing juice as they bake.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness and a darker color to the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tartness of the cranberries.

The step that matters

Cover with crust and trim the edges neatly. Raw cranberries release juice as they heat. A well-sealed edge keeps that juice in the pie, so it bakes into the filling instead of leaking out and burning on the oven floor.

“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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