Skip to main content
Dessert

Mince Pies

Mince Pies are pastry shells filled with a mixture of raisins, peel, apples, beef, suet, and spirits, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Mince Pies

Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Mince Pies

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mincemeat

  1. Mix all ingredients in an earthen dish and let stand for 2-3 weeks.

Fill and bake

  1. Prepare puff pastry shells and fill them with the mixture.

  2. Cover the shells, leaving an opening on the surface.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until cooked.

Finish

  1. Remove from the plate and pour ½ glass of cognac into the opening.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + appletop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Cognac
Adds alcohol that preserves the filling and contributes a warm, aromatic flavour.
Dry madeira
Adds a fortified wine sweetness and depth of flavour to the mincemeat.
Beef suet
Adds fat that gives the filling a rich, moist texture.
Corinthian raisins
Provide concentrated sweetness and chewy body to the filling.
Sultana raisins
Provide concentrated sweetness and chewy body to the filling.

The step that matters

Cover the shells, leaving an opening on the surface. The opening lets steam escape during baking so the pastry stays crisp rather than turning soggy. Pouring cognac in through it afterwards adds aroma to the hot filling.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, lemon, apple, beef):

  1. Cranberryfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, lemon, apple, beef. 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.

More mince pies recipes

Lemon 10Mock 4Royal 4 See all 116 →

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesApple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipes