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Plain Mince Pie

A savory pie filled with beef, suet, apples, raisins, currants, and spices, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

Plain Mince Pie

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.

Make the filling

  1. Combine the beef, suet, apples, raisins, citron, lemon peel, currants, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, salt, and grated nutmeg in a large pot.

  2. Add the cider and molasses, and mix well.

  3. Cook the mixture over medium heat until the apples are soft.

  4. Let the filling cool.

Bake the pie

  1. Fill a pie crust with the filling, similar to an apple pie.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until the crust is golden.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Adds savoury meatiness and body to the dense, rich filling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it cooks and cools.
Apples
Provide bulk and moisture that soften into the filling during cooking.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, helping the filling thicken and darken as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds dark color, deep sweetness and a rich, slightly bitter flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until the apples are soft. Apples must soften fully so the filling becomes cohesive and the raw fruit flavor mellows. Undercooked apples stay firm and can make the pie watery or uneven when baked.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, raisin, lemon, sugar, cinnamon, clove. 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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