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Reliable Mince Pies

A sweet mincemeat filling made with currants, raisins, candied peel, suet, apples, sugar, almonds, spices, lemon and orange zest, baked in pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Reliable Mince Pies

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the mincemeat

  1. Clean the raisins and currants carefully.

  2. Chop the citron peel finely and place it in a large jar.

  3. Add all other ingredients to the jar.

  4. Mix well and cover the jar.

  5. Let the mixture sit for two weeks before using.

Make the pies

  1. To make the pies, line gem pans with puff pastry.

  2. Place two heaping teaspoons of mincemeat in the center of each pastry.

  3. Cover with rounds of pastry the size of the tops of the pies.

  4. Brush the tops with beaten egg.

  5. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  5. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Currants
Provide chewy bulk and concentrated fruit sweetness to the mincemeat.
Suet
Adds richness and moisture, giving the mincemeat a soft, rounded texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps preserve the mincemeat during its resting period.
Chopped apples
Contribute moisture and tartness that balances the sweetness of the dried fruit.
Puff pastry (in the method)
Its layers of fat and steam puff up during baking to form a flaky, crisp shell.
Beaten egg (in the method)
Gives the pie tops a glossy, golden browning when baked.

The step that matters

Bake in a hot oven. A properly hot oven makes the puff pastry's fat melt and release steam quickly, lifting the layers into a flaky shell. Too cool an oven makes the pastry greasy and dense.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, apple, sugar, almond, lemon, orange):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Cranberryfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, apple, sugar, almond, lemon, orange. 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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