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Dessert

Mock Mince Pie

A sweet pie made with sugar, molasses, currants, vinegar, lemon juice, butter, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Mock Mince Pie

Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mock Mince Pie

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the sugar, molasses, currants, vinegar, lemon juice, butter, and beaten eggs in the order given.

  2. Add salt, cinnamon, and cloves to taste.

  3. Bake the mixture between two pie crusts.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Currant + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and helps give the filling its body.
Molasses
Adds dark color, rich flavor, and moisture to the filling.
Eggs
Bind the filling and set as it bakes, giving it structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, smoother texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sweetness and balances the molasses.
Currants
Add fruity sweetness and chewy pieces throughout the filling.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, vinegar, lemon, butter, egg, cinnamon. 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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