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Dessert

Fresh Currant Pie

A pie filled with mashed fresh currants and sugar, topped with butter and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,856 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Fresh Currant Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Mash the currants in a bowl.

  2. Add sugar and the beaten egg to the mashed currants; mix well.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line a pie pan with the bottom crust.

  2. Fill the crust with the currant mixture.

  3. Dot the filling with small pieces of butter.

  4. Cover with the top crust and cut holes for steam to escape.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown and the filling bubbles through the crust.

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. Currant + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Currant + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Currants
Provide the tart, fruity flavor and the bulk of the filling.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps soften the currants into a thick, jammy texture.
Egg
Binds the mashed currant mixture so it sets rather than running when sliced.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the filling and helps the top crust brown.

The step that matters

Cutting steam vents in the top crust. Currant filling releases steam and juice as it heats. Without vents, pressure builds under the crust and can push filling out or split the pastry.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter. 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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