Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Craxberry Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Make the cranberry filling
Combine cranberries and cold water in a porcelain saucepan.
Boil for 15 minutes, stirring constantly until done.
Measure the cooked cranberries.
Add 1 pint of sugar and cook together for 2 minutes.
Remove from heat and let cool.
Assemble the pie
Butter the pie plates and line them with puff pastry.
Pour the cranberry mixture into the lined pie plates.
Cut puff pastry into narrow strips and lay them in a cross pattern over the top of the pie.
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 + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cranberries
- Provide the main fruit body and tart flavour that the filling is built around.
- White granulated sugar
- Sweetens the tart cranberries and helps give the filling its body as it cooks.
- Puff pastry
- Forms the flaky, buttery crust that holds and covers the filling.
The step that matters
Boil for 15 minutes, stirring constantly until done. Cranberries are thick-skinned and high in pectin, and they can scorch on the bottom of a pan if left unattended. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and keeps the filling from burning while the skins break down and the mixture thickens.
“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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