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Dessert

Mock Mince Meat

A preserved fruit mixture flavored with spices, brandy, molasses, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Mock Mince Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Combine sliced apples, raisins, currants, brandy, molasses, and sugar in a large bowl.

  2. Add cloves, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, mace, and hot water; mix well.

  3. Incorporate softened butter and season with coarse sea salt to taste.

Store

  1. Store in a cool place until ready to use.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and body to the filling.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth, and a dark color to the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounder, softer mouthfeel to the filling.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor to the filling.
Apples
Provide tartness and moisture that give the filling its body.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, raisin, brandy, molasses, sugar, clove, 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.

More mock mincemeat recipes

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