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Dessert

Cherry Pie

A fruit pie with cherries, sugar, flour, butter, cornstarch, and pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓

Cherry Pie

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 pie

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

  2. Line a deep pie plate with the pastry.

  3. Fill the crust with the pitted cherries in alternate layers with sugar.

  4. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of flour over the cherries.

  5. Dot with butter and sprinkle cornstarch over the top.

  6. Wet the edge of the crust, cover with another layer of pastry, and press the edges together.

  7. Cut holes in the center for air to escape.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 45 to 60 minutes until the crust is golden.

  2. Serve cold with sifted sugar on top.

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. Flour + buttertop 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).

Flour and butter 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

Cherries
Provide the fruit filling that becomes the body of the pie.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and draws moisture from the fruit to form syrup.
Flour
Thickens the cherry juices as they heat, helping the filling set.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling juices, giving a clear, firm set when heated.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and softens the filling's texture.
Pastry
Forms the crust that encloses the filling and browns during baking.

The step that matters

Cut holes in the center for air to escape. As the filling heats, steam and juices expand; without vents, pressure can build and force filling out or make the crust soggy.

“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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