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Mince Pie

A pie filled with apples, meat, suet, raisins, molasses, and sugar, spiced with cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Mince Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a large bowl, combine chopped apples, meat, suet, raisins, molasses, and sugar.

  2. Add cider, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt, then mix well.

  3. If desired, stir in the juice of four lemons.

Bake

  1. Fill a pie crust with the mixture.

  2. Bake 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.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Add moisture and body to the filling.
Meat
Adds savory body and bulk to the filling.
Suet
Adds fat that enriches the filling and keeps it moist.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Molasses
Adds dark color, sweetness, and moisture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the crust brown.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Pearfits about as well
  3. Quincefits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, meat, molasses, sugar, cider, clove, cinnamon. 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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