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Dessert

Huckleberry or Elderberry Pies

A fruit pie made with huckleberries or elderberries, sugar, vinegar or lemon juice, and a dusting of flour.

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

Huckleberry or Elderberry Pies

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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Line a pie tin with the pie crust.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the crust with the berries.

  2. Add sugar, vinegar (or lemon juice), and a dusting of flour.

  3. Cover with an upper crust and bake until 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,652 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Huckleberries or elderberries
Provide the main fruit filling, supplying the pie's flavor and bulk.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the berry juices thicken into a syrup.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the berry flavor and balances the sugar.
Flour
Thickens the juices from the berries so the filling sets rather than running.

The step that matters

Add sugar, vinegar, and flour before covering. Flour and sugar must be evenly mixed through the berries so the juices thicken as the pie bakes. Uneven distribution can leave a runny pocket or a starchy patch in the filling.

“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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