Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Cherry Whang
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 pie
Line a pie tin with the crust.
Fill it with cherries and sprinkle with sugar.
In a bowl, stir flour into sweet cream and pour over the cherries.
Bake and top with meringue
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until set.
Beat egg whites to stiff peaks, then gradually add sugar. Spread the meringue over the pie and return to the oven, then brown lightly.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + flourtop 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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Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Sugar + eggtop 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
- Sweet cream
- Thickens with the flour into a custard-like layer that sets around the cherries.
- Flour
- Thickens the cream mixture so it sets rather than running out.
- Egg whites
- Whip into a meringue that puffs and browns on top of the pie.
- Cherries
- Provide the main fruit filling and its tart flavour.
The step that matters
Baking the meringue. Egg whites must be beaten to stiff peaks and sugar added gradually so the foam is stable. Under-whipped or overbaked meringue can weep or turn tough.
“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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