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Dessert

Cranberry Pie

A sweet pie with cranberries, flour, sugar, and a double crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar 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 ↓

Cranberry Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line a pie pan with the bottom crust.

  2. Blend the flour and sugar together.

  3. Sprinkle the mixture into the crust.

  4. Add a scant layer of cranberries on top of the flour.

  5. Pour 1 cup of boiling water over the cranberries.

  6. Add a pinch of salt.

  7. Cover with the top crust.

  8. Pinch the edges together.

Bake

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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 + sugartop 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

All-purpose flour
Thickens the cranberry juices and boiling water into a set, sliceable filling.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharp tartness of the cranberries.
Fresh cranberries
Provide the tart flavor and juice that forms the body of the filling.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling water over the cranberries. Starch in flour only thickens when it is heated enough to swell, and boiling water brings the flour and sugar mixture up to that temperature. Water that is not hot enough leaves the filling runny or gritty.

“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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