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Dessert

Blueberry Pie

A fruit pie made with blueberries, sugar, flour, sea salt, and a rich pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Blueberry Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Line a pie pan with rich paste.

  2. Wash and pick over the blueberries, then drain them.

  3. Turn the blueberries into the pie pan, rounding them slightly.

Fill and bake

  1. Dredge the blueberries with flour and sprinkle with sugar and salt.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of currant juice for improved flavor, especially if using huckleberries.

  3. Cover the pie and bake for 45 minutes in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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 + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes
  3. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Sugar and currant 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

Blueberries
Provide the main filling, with their juice thickened by flour into a sliceable set.
Flour
Thickens the blueberry juices so the filling sets rather than running out.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the tartness of the berries.
Rich paste
Forms the pie crust that holds the filling and browns in the oven.
Currant juice
Adds tart flavor to the filling, deepening its fruitiness.

The step that matters

Dredging the blueberries with flour. Flour must coat the berries evenly before baking. Uneven coating leaves pockets of loose juice that stay runny, while flour that is not distributed can clump and taste raw.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour. 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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