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Christmas Mince Pie

A spiced mixture of beef, apples, suet, dried fruit, and spices, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

Christmas Mince Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the beef, apples, suet, citron, and candied orange peel very fine.

  2. Mix all ingredients together thoroughly.

Store

  1. Pack the mixture in stone or glass jars and store in a cold place.

  2. This mixture can be made months in advance for pies.

Bake

  1. Bake with either Plain Puff Pastry or Rich Puff Pastry in shallow dishes with a top crust.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

  5. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean boiled beef
Provides the meaty body that gives mincemeat its traditional texture.
Tart apples
Add moisture and a bright acidity that balances the sweetness.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it matures.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the filling during storage.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy body to the filling.
Brandy
Acts as a preservative and adds aroma to the mixture.

The step that matters

Store the mixture in a cold place in sealed jars. The filling contains raw meat and fruit, and it keeps safely and improves only when kept cold and sealed, so the flavours can blend over time.

Swap the currant

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

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

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