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Dessert

Cracker, or Mock Mince Pie

A sweet pie made from soaked crackers, molasses, sugar, butter, raisins, vinegar, and spices, baked between two pie crusts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cracker, or 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.

Prepare the filling

  1. Soak the crackers in 2 cups of boiling water.

  2. Add molasses, sugar, butter, raisins, vinegar, nutmeg, ground cloves, and cinnamon to the soaked crackers. Mix well until combined.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie dish lined with one pie crust.

  2. Cover with the second pie crust and seal the edges.

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

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Crackers
Soak to soften and bind, giving the filling body in place of a traditional meat base.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a tender texture.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the filling.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the molasses and sugar.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, sugar, butter, vinegar, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, butter, vinegar, nutmeg, 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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