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Dessert

Blackberry Pie

A fruit pie made with blackberries, sugar, flour, nutmeg, and a double crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Blackberry Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA fairly brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a fairly brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Rinse and drain the blackberries.

  2. Line a large pie pan with the bottom crust.

Assemble

  1. Mix the blackberries, sugar, flour, and nutmeg.

  2. Fill the pie crust with the blackberry mixture.

  3. Cover with the top crust, making slits in the top.

Bake

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 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.

  1. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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

Blackberries
Provide the fruit filling and its main flavor and moisture.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the tartness of the blackberries.
Flour
Thickens the juices released by the blackberries as the pie bakes.
Pie crust
Forms the bottom and top shell that holds the filling while it bakes.

The step that matters

Cover with the top crust, making slits in the top.. Slits let steam escape during baking so the filling does not build pressure and make the crust soggy or split unevenly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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.

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