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Dessert

Elderberry and Apple Pie

A fruit pie made with elderberries, apples, flour, eggs, butter, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Elderberry and Apple 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.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a mixing bowl, combine the elderberries, apple sauce, sugar, and flour.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into an unbaked pie shell.

  2. Dot the top with butter.

  3. Bake until the filling is set and cooked through.

  4. Make a meringue with the egg whites and spread it over the pie.

  5. Return the pie to the oven for about 12 minutes to set and brown the meringue.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Elderberries
Provide the main fruit flavor and bulk of the filling.
Flour
Thickens the juices so the filling sets rather than running.
Eggs
Set the filling when baked and form the meringue topping.
Apple sauce
Adds tartness and moisture while contributing pectin to help the filling set.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the meringue stay stable and brown.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the filling's flavor and texture.

The step that matters

Baking until the filling is set. Flour and egg proteins thicken as they heat, so the filling must reach a full set before the meringue goes on. Underbaking leaves a runny, soupy pie, while overbaking can make the custard-like filling weep or crack.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, sauce, butter, sugar):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, sauce, butter, sugar. 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.

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