Skip to main content
Dessert

Raspberry-pie

A deep pie filled with raspberries and currants, sweetened with sugar and topped with pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Raspberry-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

  1. Prepare the pastry and line a deep pie plate with it.

  2. Remove the stems from the raspberries and currants, then place them in the pie plate.

  3. Sprinkle the sugar over the fruit.

  4. Cover the fruit with pastry, wetting the edges to adhere.

  5. Cut two or three slits in the upper crust and brush it with the beaten egg.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the pie in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Once done, dust the pie with sugar.

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 + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Currant + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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

Raspberries
Provide the main fruit flavor and juice that forms the filling.
Currants
Add tart acidity and extra juice to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and helps draw out juice during baking.
Pastry
Forms the structural crust that encloses the filling.
Egg
Brushed on the top crust to promote browning and a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Sealing the top crust. Wetting the edges before covering the fruit helps the pastry bond so juices do not leak out during baking. Cutting slits lets steam escape so the crust does not burst.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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

Red Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesCurrant SherbetCurrant Sherbet9 recipesCurrant and Raspberry IceCurrant and Raspberry Ice7 recipes