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Dessert

Mock Mincemeat

A sweet, fruit‑filled mixture baked in a pie crust, made without meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mock Mincemeat

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. In a large bowl, combine warm water, butter, vinegar, raisins, bread crumbs or crackers, sugar, and molasses, then mix well and add spices to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie dish and cover with a top crust.

  2. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Provide chewy texture and concentrated sweetness that stand in for the meat-free fruit filling.
Bread crumbs or crushed crackers
Absorb liquid and thicken the filling so it holds its body when baked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling taste rich and full.
Molasses
Adds depth, dark color and a caramel-like sweetness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet filling and balances its richness.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the filling a rich mouthfeel.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, vinegar, bread, sugar, molasses):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar, bread, sugar, molasses. 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 mock mincemeat recipes

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