Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Cherry Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Stone the cherries and mix them with sugar and flour.
Line 2 deep pie tins with pastry.
Brush the pastry with egg white.
Fill the tins with the cherry mixture.
Assemble and bake
Place the top crust on, cutting a hole in it.
Brush the rim of the lower crust with egg and press the crusts together.
Loosen the edge of the pie from the pan.
Bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).
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.
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 filling's fruit, flavour and bulk once cooked down in the pie.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps thicken the cherry juices into a syrupy filling.
- Flour
- Thickens the cherry juices so the filling sets rather than running out.
- Pastry
- Forms the crust that holds the filling and browns in the oven.
- Egg
- Brushed on the pastry to promote browning and to seal the crust edges together.
The step that matters
Brush the rim and press the crusts together. A firm seal keeps juices from leaking out during baking. Pressing the egg-brushed edges together bonds the dough so the filling stays inside the pie.
“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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