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Mince Pies

Savory pies made with puff pastry and minced meat, finished with an egg white glaze and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Mince Pies

Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mince Pies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Roll out the puff pastry to ¼ inch thick.

  2. Line good-sized patty pans with the pastry.

  3. Fill them with mince meat and cover with more pastry.

  4. Cut the edges close to the pans.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat the egg white to stiff froth and brush it over the baked pies.

  3. Sift powdered sugar over them and return to the oven for 1-2 minutes to dry the egg.

  4. Serve very hot on a table napkin.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Meat + sugartop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, layered crust that encloses the filling.
Mince meat
Provides the rich, savoury filling inside the pies.
Egg white
Forms a glossy, browned coating when brushed on and baked.
Powdered sugar
Adds a light sweet coating on top of the pies.

The step that matters

Brushing and drying the egg white. Beaten egg white must be stiff and evenly brushed, then briefly returned to the oven so it sets and dries. Wet or unevenly spread egg white stays tacky and can make the sugar dissolve and weep.

“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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