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Dessert

Summer Mince Pie

A sweet pie made with butter, sugar, molasses, boiling water, Boston crackers, raisins, apples, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Summer Mince Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a large bowl.

  2. Add sugar, molasses, and boiling water. Mix well.

  3. Crumble the Boston crackers into the mixture.

  4. Stir in raisins and apples.

  5. Add cinnamon, cloves, and allspice to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

  2. Bake until set.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  5. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a tender, moist body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling thicken and set as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds dark color, deep flavor and moisture to the filling.
Boston crackers
Crumbled into the filling, they soak up liquid and help give body to the mixture.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the filling.
Apples
Add tartness and moisture that balances the sweetness of the sugar and molasses.

The step that matters

Bake until set. The filling has no eggs or starch to firm it, so it sets only by losing moisture in the oven. Baking too briefly leaves it runny, while overbaking can make it dry and hard.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, molasses, raisin, cinnamon, clove, allspice):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, raisin, cinnamon, clove, allspice. 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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