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Mince Pies

A sweet meat pie with beef, apples, raisins, currants, spices, and candied peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Mince Pies

Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Mince Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mince meat

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl to make the mince meat.

Assemble and bake

  1. Prepare a pie crust with a bottom layer.

  2. Lay narrow strips of pastry in a trellis pattern over the top.

  3. Bake until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbling.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

Lean beef
Provides the meaty body and savoury base of the filling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich as it cooks.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that balances the sweetness of the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mince meat.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and depth of flavour to the filling.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbling. The filling must bubble through so it is fully hot and cooked, while the crust browns from dry heat. Pulling the pie early leaves the filling underheated and the pastry pale and soggy underneath.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, raisin, currant, sugar, molasses, 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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