Name: Mock Mince Pie
Ingredients: 2 cups sugar; 1 cup fine bread crumbs; 1 cup water; ½ cup vinegar; ½ pound chopped raisins; 1 egg-sized piece of butter; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1 teaspoon nutmeg

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mock Mince Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

In a large bowl, combine sugar, bread crumbs, water, vinegar, chopped raisins, butter, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and mix until well combined.
Prepare a pie crust and fill it with the mixture.

Bake

Bake according to your pie crust instructions 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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Raisins: Provide the chewy body and sweetness that make up the pie's filling.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps give the filling its body as it bakes.
Bread crumbs: Soak up liquid and thicken the filling so it holds together when baked.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the sugar and raisins.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.

Swap the raisin

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

Vanillafits about as well
Figfits about as well
Raisinthe original
Lemonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, bread, vinegar, egg, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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.