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Bread

Crumb Pie

A pie made from bread crumbs, butter, water, vinegar, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Crumb Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Soak and mix

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in warm water for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the butter, cold water, vinegar, and nutmeg, then stir well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Prepare two pie crusts as you would for other pies.

  2. Fill the crusts with the mixture and bake.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Nutmeg + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Vinegar + breadtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,672 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk of the filling, softened by soaking so they hold moisture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the filling a softer, richer mouthfeel.
Cold water
Adds moisture to bind the mixture together.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, vinegar, bread):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar, bread. 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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