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Dessert

Mock Mince Pie

A sweet pie made with raisins, crackers, sugar, vinegar, butter, spices, and hot water.

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

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 ↓

Mock 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. In a large bowl, combine raisins, crackers or bread crumbs, sugar, vinegar, butter, cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, and nutmeg.

  2. Stir in the hot water until well mixed.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into two pie crusts.

  2. Bake until golden brown.

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. 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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Provide chewy texture and concentrated sweetness in the filling.
Crackers or bread crumbs
Soak up liquid and thicken the filling so it sets rather than runs.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown during baking.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar and raisins.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that gives a tender, flavourful filling.

The step that matters

Stir in the hot water until well mixed. Crumbs and raisins must be evenly moistened so the filling thickens uniformly; dry pockets stay pasty while wet spots run loose during baking.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, vinegar, butter, cinnamon, clove, pepper):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, vinegar, butter, cinnamon, clove, pepper. 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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