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Dessert

Raisin Pie

A pie filled with boiled raisins, sugar, flour, and butter topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Raisin Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Wash the raisins thoroughly and cover them with water.

  2. Boil the raisins until tender.

  3. Add the sugar and thicken the mixture with flour mixed smooth in a little water.

  4. Stir until the flour is cooked.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place small pieces of butter and a little nutmeg on top of the filling before adding the top crust.

  2. Bake the filling between two pie crusts.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

Raisins
Provide the main body of the filling and its sweet, chewy texture once softened.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps give it a glossy, thick body as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, sliceable filling when it is cooked through.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the top of the filling, contributing flavor and browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Stir until the flour is cooked. Flour must be fully heated so its starch swells and thickens the liquid; undercooked flour leaves a pasty, raw taste and a filling that does not set properly.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar, flour, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, flour, butter. 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.

More raisin pie recipes

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