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Dessert

Mock Mince Pie

A pie filled with a mixture of raisins, crackers, sugar, vinegar, and nutmeg, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Mock Mince Pie

Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the filling

  1. Boil the raisins in water for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the broken crackers, sugar, and vinegar to the mixture.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool.

  4. Add a dash of nutmeg.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill pie crusts with the mixture and cover.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Vinegar + nutmegtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,864 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Sugar and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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 chewy texture and natural sweetness as the main body of the filling.
Broken crackers
Absorb liquid and give the filling bulk and a thicker, spoonable structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and cuts through the sweetness.

The step that matters

Allow the mixture to cool. Hot filling placed into raw pastry can soften the crust before the oven sets it, leading to a soggy base. Cooling first helps the crust hold its shape while baking.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, vinegar. 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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