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Dessert

Currant and Raspberry Pie

A fruit pie filled with currants and raspberries, topped with a pastry crust and sprinkled with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Currant and Raspberry Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Line a deep pie plate with the bottom crust.

Fill and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the currants, raspberries, and sugar.

  2. Pour the fruit mixture into the crust and cover with the top crust.

  3. Brush the top crust with milk.

  4. Bake until the crust is golden brown.

Finish and serve

  1. Sprinkle sugar over the top and serve with cream.

  2. Serve cold.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  3. Red currant + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together193 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Red currants
Provide the tart flavour that balances the sugar in the filling.
Raspberries
Add sweet, aromatic fruit flavour and soft juicy texture to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and helps draw out juices that form the filling.
Pie crust
Forms the structure that holds the filling and browns in the oven.
Milk
Helps the top crust brown evenly and gives it a golden colour.

The step that matters

Bake until the crust is golden brown. Fruit fillings release juice as they heat, so the pie must bake long enough for the crust underneath to set and cook through rather than turn soggy. Browning on top signals that the crust is done.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, cream. 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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