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Mince Pie

A fruit and meat pie made with suet, minced meat, raisins, currants, apples, spices, syrup, cider, sugar, lemon, and boiled before baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription

This recipe’s ingredient list has no crust or pastry, so it bakes more like a fruit dish than a pastry pie.

By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cider match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,042 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stir all together.

  2. Let come to a boil.

  3. Put in a jar.

  4. When making pies, put a tablespoon of brandy to a pie.

By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.). 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. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Apple + cidertop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,042 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Apple + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,586 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Currant + cidertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender body to the filling.
Apples
Provide moisture and a tart, fresh bulk to the filling.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and body to the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the filling.
Cider
Supplies liquid and a mild acidity that moistens the mixture.
Brandy
Adds aroma and warmth to each pie.

Flavor stand-ins for the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, raisin, apple, syrup, cider, cinnamon, pepper):

  1. Figbetter flavor fit
  2. Plumbetter flavor fit
  3. Grapebetter flavor fit
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, raisin, apple, syrup, cider, cinnamon, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.

More mince pie recipes

Mock 45Filling 14Lemon 8Fruit 5Patties 5Christmas 4 See all 109 →

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