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Dessert

Raisin Pie

A sweet pie with raisins, maple syrup, milk, coconut butter, pine nuts, cinnamon, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Raisin Pie

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).

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine milk, maple syrup, chopped raisins, coconut butter, pine nuts, cinnamon, and lemon peel.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pie dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with pie crust, cutting slits for steam to escape.

  2. Bake until golden brown.

  3. Serve with cream 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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Pine + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Coconut + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together979 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Coconut + pinetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together25 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Provide sweetness and chewy body to the filling as they soften during baking.
Maple syrup
Adds sweetness and moisture, and contributes to browning in the baked filling.
Milk
Supplies liquid and richness that help bind the filling as it bakes.
Coconut butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer texture in the filling.

The step that matters

Cover with pie crust, cutting slits for steam to escape. Steam builds up inside a sealed pie as the filling heats. Cutting slits lets it vent, so the crust does not puff up or split unevenly and the filling sets properly.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, maple syrup, raisin, coconut, butter, pine, cinnamon):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, maple syrup, raisin, coconut, butter, pine, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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