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Dessert

Vinegar Mince Pie

A sweet and tangy pie filling made with vinegar, water, sugar, molasses, raisins, bread crumbs, butter, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Vinegar 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.

Make the filling

  1. In a large bowl, combine vinegar, water, sugar, molasses, and chopped raisins.

  2. Stir in bread crumbs and melted butter until well mixed.

  3. Beat the eggs and add them to the mixture along with your choice of spices.

Bake

  1. Pour the filling into a pie crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set firm when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the liquids and give the filling body and a soft texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark color and a rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and adds to its set and browning.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins coagulate as they heat, firming the filling. Pulling the pie too early leaves it runny, while overbaking can make it dry and cracked.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, molasses, bread, butter, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, molasses, bread, butter, egg. 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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