Name: Cranberry Pie
Ingredients: cranberry sauce; pie crust; powdered sugar

Why it works: Sauce and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,147 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cranberry Pie

Ingredients

cranberry sauce
pie crust
powdered sugar

Directions

Line a deep pie plate with pie crust.
Fill the crust with cranberry sauce.
Bake until the crust is golden brown.
Add strips of pie crust on top for decoration.
Sift powdered sugar over the pie just before serving.

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.

Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,147 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cranberry + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together480 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cranberry + sugartop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together374 recipes

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