Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Strawberry Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Make the filling
Simmer the strawberries with the sugar for 10 minutes.
Add the butter and cornstarch, then cook for 3 more minutes.
Assemble the pie
Cool the mixture and fill the pie crusts.
Cover with meringue.
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 + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Strawberries
- Provide the main fruit flavor and most of the filling's moisture and bulk.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and draws moisture out of the berries as they simmer.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the cooking juices into a sliceable filling once heated and cooled.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a rounder, smoother mouthfeel to the filling.
The step that matters
Cooking the cornstarch through. Cornstarch only thickens fully when the mixture is heated enough for its starch granules to swell and set. If it is undercooked, the filling stays thin and runny after cooling, so keep it cooking for the full time instead of stopping early.
“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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