Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Gooseberry Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut off the blossoms and stems from the gooseberries.
Line a pie dish with the pie crust.
Assemble and bake
Fill the dish with the prepared gooseberries.
Sprinkle the sugar over the top, using one-third as much sugar as berries.
Dredge lightly with flour and cover with a thin crust pricked with a fork.
Bake for 30 minutes.
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 + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Gooseberries
- Provide the tart fruit that forms the filling and gives the pie its acidity.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the tart berries and helps draw out juice that thickens into a syrup.
- Flour
- Dusted over the fruit, it absorbs juice so the filling sets rather than running.
- Pie crust
- Forms the base and top shell that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
The step that matters
Dredge lightly with flour and cover with a thin crust pricked with a fork. Flour must coat the fruit evenly so juices thicken instead of pooling. Pricking the top crust lets steam escape, preventing a soggy, bubbling-over pie with a cracked or collapsed top.
“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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