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Dessert

Fruit Mincemeat

Fruit mincemeat is a sweet mixture of apples, raisins, currants, and spices, bound with butter, egg, and cider.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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

Make the filling

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

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

Assemble 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

Apples
Add bulk and fruity moisture that softens as the filling bakes.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and deep flavor, and helps the filling brown.
Seeded raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the cider and juices, giving the filling body and holding it together.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth mouthfeel.
Beaten egg
Binds the filling and sets as it bakes, helping it hold its shape.

The step that matters

Moistening the filling. Bread crumbs and dried fruit absorb liquid gradually, so add the hot water a little at a time. Too much liquid makes the filling soggy and can leave the pie crust wet and gummy.

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.

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