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Dessert

Mock Mince Pie

A pie made with crushed biscuits, raisins, molasses, currants, vinegar, lemon juice, butter, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Mock Mince Pie

Why it works: Biscuit and raisin work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mock Mince Pie

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the crushed biscuits, raisins, sugar, molasses, currants, vinegar, lemon juice, butter, and beaten eggs in the order given.

  2. Add salt, cinnamon, and cloves to taste.

  3. Bake the mixture between two pie crusts.

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. Biscuit + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Biscuit + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a tender, flavourful filling.
Crushed uneeda biscuits
Bulk out the filling and soak up the liquids to give body.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness and a dark, rich flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharp vinegar and lemon juice.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, raisin, sugar, molasses, currant, vinegar, butter):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, raisin, sugar, molasses, currant, vinegar, butter. 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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