Name: Lemon Molasses Pie
Ingredients: 1 lemon (or 2 if small); 1 cup raisins; 1 cup sugar (white or brown); ½ cup molasses; 1 tablespoon flour; 1 small piece of butter; 1 cup boiling water; Juice of the lemons

Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Molasses Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

Peel the lemon and boil the peel, then chop it with the raisins.
Add sugar, molasses, flour mixed with cold water, butter, boiling water, and lemon juice, then mix all ingredients together.

Bake

Bake in a pie crust with a top 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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,577 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Molasses: Adds deep sweetness and a dark, rich flavor to the filling.
Raisins: Add chewy texture and moisture to the filling.
Flour: Thickens the filling so it sets rather than running out when sliced.
Lemon: Adds acidity and bright aroma that balance the sweetness of the sugar and molasses.

Swap the lemon

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Applefits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, molasses, flour, 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.