Why it works: Flour and sugar 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 ↓
Fruit 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.
Prepare the filling
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Line a pie tin with the rich pie dough, pinching the edges to create a deep pie crust.
Combine the blackberries, flour, egg yolks, and sugar in a bowl and mix the mixture thoroughly.
Pour the blackberry mixture into the prepared crust.
Bake and top with meringue
Bake until set.
Beat the egg whites until stiff.
Gradually add 2 tablespoons of sugar, then continue beating until very stiff.
Spread the meringue on top of the pie.
Return the pie to the oven to brown.
Transfer the finished pie to a plate.
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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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Blackberries
- Provide the main fruit flavour and bulk of the filling.
- Flour
- Thickens the blackberry juices so the filling sets rather than running.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and help thicken the filling as it bakes.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a meringue that gives a light, airy topping that browns in the oven.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps the whipped whites hold their stiff structure.
The step that matters
Beating the meringue until very stiff. Egg whites need to be whipped until they hold firm peaks, and sugar added gradually, so the foam is stable enough to spread and brown without weeping or collapsing.
“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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