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Dessert

Crumb Mince-meat

A pie with a crumb crust filled with sour cream mince, peaches, prunes, or raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Evora Bucknum Perkins · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Crumb Mince-meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mix, boil, and put into crusts. Steamed.

  2. Grape juice may be used for part of the water with or without the coriander seed.

  3. Flavor the sugar with oil of lemon.

  4. Add one tablespoon of lemon juice.

  5. Use chopped seeded raisins or English currants instead of seedless raisins.

  6. Mix sugar and flour, pour boiling water over, boil up well, add raisins, cool, bake between two crusts.

  7. Do not make filling too thick as it is solid.

  8. Add vanilla or lemon flavoring if desired.

  9. Add yolks of 2 eggs to filling of raisin pie with or without 1 tablespoon of butter a moment before removing from the fire.

Fill and bake

  1. Place into two crusts.

  2. Place in two crusts.

  3. Bake just long enough to set the egg and bake the crust.

  4. Place thick prune pulp in one crust, add strips of pastry over top if convenient.

Finish and serve

  1. When heated, add vanilla, turn into baked crust and meringue with the 2 whites of eggs.

  2. Put sliced ripe peaches in baked crust.

  3. Substitute mellow bananas for peaches and use a very delicate sprinkling of sugar.

  4. Pitted stewed prunes in quarters, flour, salt and a little sugar.

  5. Sprinkle with sugar and cover with whipped cream or an uncooked meringue.

  6. Cut pie before covering with cream or meringue.

  7. Add meringue with or without grated lemon rind, or cover with whipped cream after cutting.

  8. Serve at once.

  9. Use milk instead of water and white sugar instead of brown if desired.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

510Calories
26 gProtein
8 gFat
87 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 10 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Yogurt170g plain Greek100
Raisin1 small box (28g)85
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cracker5 saltine crackers (15g)66
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Molasses1 tbsp (20g)58
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Waternot in our table0
Pienot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Evora Bucknum Perkins. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Plump in the cooked sugar syrup and give the filling body and chew.
Eggs
Set the filling when baked, giving it a firm, sliceable texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the acidity of the lemon.

The step that matters

Bake just long enough to set the egg. Egg proteins set as they heat; overbaking tightens them further, making the filling rubbery and causing it to weep liquid, so the pie should be removed once the filling is just set.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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