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Dessert

Plain Mince Pies

A pie filled with finely chopped meat, apples, raisins, currants, and spices, sweetened with molasses and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plain Mince Pies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

  1. Chop the meat, apples, and stoned raisins into very fine pieces.

  2. Boil the water, brown sugar, cinnamon, and raisins for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the remaining ingredients and cook until the apples are soft.

  4. Once cool, fill pie crusts with the mixture to make pies.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Apples
Break down while cooking to add moisture and body to the filling.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the filling become syrupy.
Molasses
Contributes deep sweetness and a dark, rich flavor.
Lemons
Juice and rind add acidity and bright aroma that balance the sweetness.

Flavor stand-ins for the currant

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

  1. Figbetter flavor fit
  2. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  3. Orangebetter flavor fit
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, raisin, apple, cinnamon, molasses, allspice, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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