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Dessert

Cracker Pie

A sweet pie made with crackers, molasses, sugar, butter, raisins, vinegar, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cracker 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.

Make the filling

  1. Soak the crackers in boiling water until soft.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the soaked crackers, molasses, sugar, butter, raisins, vinegar, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and cover with a second crust.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Crackers
Soak to soften and thicken, giving the filling body in place of flour or custard.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark color and a rich flavor to the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the filling.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruity sweetness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sweet molasses flavor.

The step that matters

Soak the crackers until soft. Crackers must fully absorb the boiling water so they break down and blend smoothly into the filling. Dry or partly soaked pieces stay gritty and can leave an uneven texture in the baked pie.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, sugar, butter, vinegar, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, butter, vinegar, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon. 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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