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Dessert

Currant Wine Pie

A pie filled with currant wine, sugar, and flour, baked in a double crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,323 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Currant Wine 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and assemble the pie

  1. In a bowl, mix currant wine, sugar, and flour until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into one of the pie crusts.

  3. Cover with the second pie crust and seal the edges.

  4. Cut slits in the top crust to allow steam to escape.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.

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. Currant + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Currant + flourtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes
  4. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes
  5. Wine + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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

Currant wine
Provides the liquid and the main fruity flavour of the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the currant wine.
Flour
Thickens the wine and sugar mixture so the filling sets rather than running.
Pie crusts
Form the enclosing shell that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Cut slits in the top crust. Slits let steam escape while the filling heats. Without them, pressure can build under the crust and push filling out or make the crust soggy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, sugar, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, sugar, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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