Skip to main content
Dessert

Fruit Mincemeat

Fruit mincemeat is a preserved fruit mixture made with apples, raisins, currants, walnuts, spices, and sweet cider.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Fruit Mincemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. In a large bowl, combine chopped apples, brown sugar, seeded raisins, bread crumbs, sweet cider, butter, beaten egg, cinnamon, mace, cleansed currants, and chopped walnuts, then mix all ingredients thoroughly.

  2. Add hot water to moisten the mixture as needed.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill two pie crusts with the mixture.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

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

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon 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

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the filling brown during baking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the juices and cider so the filling holds together rather than running out.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, rounder mouthfeel.
Seeded raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and a chewy texture.
Sweet cider
Adds liquid and fruity flavor that moistens and sweetens the filling.

The step that matters

Add hot water to moisten the mixture as needed. Bread crumbs and dried fruit soak up liquid. Adding water gradually keeps the filling moist without making it soupy, which would soften the pastry and leave it soggy.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, bread, cider, butter, egg, cinnamon):

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, bread, cider, butter, egg, 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.

You might also like

Apple Bread PuddingApple Bread Pudding21 recipesApple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipes