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Dessert

Pie Plant Pie

A simple pie made with pie plant, sugar, flour, and crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Pie Plant Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Mix ½ cup white sugar and sprinkle it over the bottom crust.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the pie plant and sprinkle another ½ cup sugar and 1 heaping teaspoon flour on top.

  2. Cover with a top crust and bake for 45 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Pie plant
Provides the tart filling that gives the pie its main flavour and moisture as it cooks.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and draws juice out of the pie plant, softening it as the pie bakes.
Flour
Absorbs the released juices and thickens them so the filling sets rather than running.

The step that matters

Sprinkling the flour over the pie plant. Flour needs to be spread evenly over the fruit so it can mix into the juices as they form. Clumps stay dry and can leave pockets of raw flour, and an uneven distribution leaves the filling runny in some places and stiff in others.

“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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