Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Raisin Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Boil, stone, and chop the raisins.
Roll the crackers into fine crumbs.
Grate the lemon rind and squeeze out the juice.
Assemble and bake
Mix all ingredients together.
Bake with two crusts.
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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Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,742 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Form the main filling and provide sweetness and chewy body.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the tart lemon.
- Lemon
- Adds acidity and fragrant oils from the rind for brightness.
- Crackers
- Crumbs absorb juices and help thicken the filling.
- Pie crusts
- Enclose the filling and give the pie its structure.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Datesfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar. 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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