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Dessert

Damson Pie

A fruit pie made with damson preserves, sugar, butter, eggs, cream, and rich pastry crust.

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 ↓

Damson 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the damson preserves, sugar, and butter until well combined.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and cream, mixing until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a prepared rich pastry crust.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until set and golden.

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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Damson preserves
Provides the main fruit flavour, sweetness and a tangy acidity.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the filling.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the filling its firm, sliceable structure.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving a smoother, softer set.
Rich pastry
Holds the filling in shape and gives a crisp base as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake until set and golden. The beaten eggs thicken as they heat and set the filling. Baking until just set keeps it smooth and tender; overbaking can make the eggs curdle, weep or turn rubbery.

“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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