Name: Cranberry Pie
Ingredients: 1 pie crust (Good Plain Paste or Flaky Pie-Crust); 4 cups raw cranberries; 1 cup molasses; 4 tablespoons sugar

Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cranberry Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

1 pie crust (Good Plain Paste or Flaky Pie-Crust)
4 cups raw cranberries
1 cup molasses
4 tablespoons sugar

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Assemble

Line a pie dish with the pie crust.
Fill it with raw cranberries.
Add molasses and sugar.
Cover with the remaining crust and trim the edges neatly.

Bake

Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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.

Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cranberries: Provide the tart fruit filling that the sweetener balances.
Molasses: Adds dark sweetness and a deep, rich flavour to the filling.
Sugar: Sweetens the filling and helps balance the tartness of the cranberries.
Pie crust: Forms the structure that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

“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.