Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Currant and Gooseberry Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Wash the currants and place them in a pot with 1 cup of water over moderate heat.
Stew the currants until they begin to break, then add the sugar and let it scald for a few minutes.
If not stewing, layer the currants in the pie crust with a thick layer of sugar between each layer.
Use about ¼ pound of sugar for every pint of currants to ensure sweetness.
For green currants, sweeten with a mix of molasses and sugar.
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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Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,225 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Currant + molassestop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,817 recipes
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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, molasses):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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