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Dessert

Raisin Pie

A simple raisin pie baked in two crusts.

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

  1. Boil the raisins in water for a few minutes.

  2. Add sugar and butter to the raisins.

  3. Mix flour with a small amount of water to make a smooth paste.

  4. Stir the paste into the raisin mixture.

  5. Add vanilla and lemon juice, then mix well.

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

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

  3. Raisin + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together782 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Raisins
Provide the main filling body and natural sweetness as they soften in boiling water.
Flour
Thickens the raisin liquid into a smooth, sliceable filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the lemon juice.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer mouthfeel in the filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the filling.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma that rounds out the sweet fruit flavor.

The step that matters

Stir the flour paste into the hot raisin mixture. Flour starch clumps if added dry or unevenly. Mixing it smooth with water first separates the granules, so stirring it through the hot filling lets the starch thicken evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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

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