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Dessert

Cherry Cobbler

A baked dessert of cherries covered with pastry crust, served with cream or sugar‑butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cherry Cobbler

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line a deep baking dish with the pastry.

Assemble

  1. Layer the pitted cherries and pastry alternately in the dish, finishing with a layer of pastry on top.

  2. Sweeten each layer of cherries well and dredge a little flour over them.

  3. Add small pieces of butter on top if desired.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 45 minutes and serve with cream or a sugar and butter sauce.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Pastry
Forms the crust that holds the cherries and contains their juices while baking.
Fresh cherries
Provide the main fruit flavour and juicy filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the cherries and balances their tartness.
Flour
Dusted over the cherries to thicken their juices as they bake.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the filling when used on top.

The step that matters

Sweeten each layer of cherries well and dredge a little flour over them. Flour and sugar must be spread evenly between the fruit layers. Cherry juice released during baking thickens only where flour is present, so unevenly dusted layers can leave runny pockets or a pasty taste.

“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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