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 ↓
Cherry 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Assemble the pie
Fill a large deep dish with common red cherries.
Sprinkle 4 teaspoons of sugar over the cherries.
Dredge a little flour on top of the cherries.
Cover with the upper crust and bake until golden brown.
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.
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Common red cherries
- Provide the fruit filling that gives the pie its bulk and tart flavor.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps draw out juices from the cherries.
- Flour
- Thickens the cherry juices as the pie bakes so the filling sets.
- Upper crust
- Encloses the filling and browns in the oven to form the top of the pie.
The step that matters
Cover with the upper crust and bake until golden brown. Baking until the crust is fully browned ensures the flour has thickened the cherry juices and the filling is hot enough to set, rather than running soggy.
“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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