Name: Sour Cream Pie
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; 1 cup thick sour cream; 1 egg; 1 scant cup seeded raisins, finely chopped; 1 tablespoon vinegar; 2 tablespoons flour; nutmeg to taste

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 ↓

Sour Cream Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the filling

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the flour and sugar together.
Add the sour cream, egg, raisins, vinegar, and nutmeg to the flour mixture. Stir until well combined.

Bake

Pour the filling into a pie crust and cover with a top crust.
Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the crust is 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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,920 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour cream: Adds moisture and richness, giving the filling a creamy, tender body.
Egg: Helps the filling set as it bakes, giving it structure.
Flour: Thickens the filling so it holds its shape when sliced.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps balance the tang of the sour cream and vinegar.
Raisins: Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the filling.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, egg, raisin, vinegar, flour):

Cinnamonfits about as well
Nutmegthe original
Jalapenofits less well
Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, egg, raisin, vinegar, flour. 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.