Skip to main content
Dessert

Mince Pie

A sweet and spiced mince pie filled with beef, fruits, and sugar, baked in pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and quince work together. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Mince Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cook and mince the beef finely.

  2. Chop the suet finely.

  3. Cook the quinces in the cider until soft.

  4. Chop the citron, lemon, and orange peel.

  5. Mix all ingredients and cook slowly until the apples are soft.

  6. Add the brandy and wine last.

  7. Pack the mixture in jars and cover tightly.

Bake the pie

  1. Roll out half of the flaky pastry to ¼ inch thickness and cover a pie pan.

  2. Fill the pastry with the mince mixture, about ½ inch thick.

  3. Roll out the remaining pastry to ⅛ inch thickness, fold over, and cut 2-3 slits.

  4. Cover the pie and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Apple + quincetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Lemon + quincetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together336 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the meaty body and savoury bulk of the filling.
Suet
Adds fat that gives the filling richness and a moist, tender texture.
Apples
Break down during slow cooking to give the filling moisture and tartness.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps preserve it.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture slowly until the apples are soft. Slow cooking lets the apples and meat soften and blend without scorching the sugar and fruit. Rushing it leaves firm apples and a filling that can burn on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, currant, apple, sugar, molasses, raisin, quince):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, currant, apple, sugar, molasses, raisin, quince. 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.

More mince pie recipes

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

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesApple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipes