Skip to main content
Dessert

Cranberry Pie

A pie filled with stewed cranberries, sugar, vanilla, molasses, and a cornstarch thickening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cranberry Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the cranberries

  1. Stew the cranberries in water until tender.

  2. Mash the stewed cranberries through a sieve.

  3. Add sugar to the mixture.

  4. Cook the mixture for 3 minutes.

Thicken and fill

  1. Fill the pie crust with the cranberry mixture.

  2. Dissolve cornstarch in a little cold water.

  3. Pour the boiling water into the cornstarch mixture and mix.

  4. Add vanilla and molasses to the mixture.

Finish and bake

  1. Pour the mixture over the cranberries.

  2. Cover with an upper crust.

  3. Bake the pie.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Vanilla + molassestop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together732 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Cranberries
Provide the main fruit body and tart flavor of the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the cranberries' tartness.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling as it heats, so it holds its shape when sliced.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth of flavor and dark color.
Vanilla
Adds aroma that rounds out the fruit flavor.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling water into the cornstarch mixture and mix.. Cornstarch must be fully dispersed before heating, or it clumps. Starch thickens only when hot liquid gelatinizes it, so the mixture needs to be stirred well to set evenly.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses. 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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesMolasses Sponge CakeMolasses Sponge Cake9 recipes