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Dessert

Berry Pies

A fruit pie made with blackberries or raspberries, flour, sugar, and optional water, baked in a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Berry Pies

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Line a pie tin with good pastry.

  2. In a bowl, mix 1 tablespoon flour with ⅔ cup sugar.

  3. Spread half of the flour-sugar mixture in the bottom of the pie.

Fill and seal

  1. Crush half of the berries to release juice and add them to the pie.

  2. Top with the remaining flour-sugar mixture.

  3. If berries are dry, add 1–2 tablespoons of water.

  4. Add the top crust, leaving vent holes for steam.

  5. Wet the edges of the crust and pinch them together to seal.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 to 30 minutes.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + clovetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,045 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 or raspberries
Provide the main fruit flavour, juice and body of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps draw out juice from the berries.
Flour
Thickens the released berry juice so the filling sets rather than running.
Good pastry for pie crust
Forms the structure that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Crush half of the berries. Crushing releases juice that mixes with the flour and sugar to thicken the filling. Whole berries alone may leave the filling watery and loose.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter. 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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