Name: Summer Mince Pie
Ingredients: 4 crackers, finely crushed; 1½ cups sugar; 1 cup molasses; 1 cup cider; ⅔ cup butter; 1 cup chopped raisins; ½ cup currants; 2 eggs, well beaten; spices to taste

Why it works: Cider and currant work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 500 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Summer Mince Pie

Ingredients

Directions

In a large bowl, combine the crushed crackers, sugar, molasses, cider, and butter.
Mix in the chopped raisins and currants.
Stir in the beaten eggs last.
Add spices to taste and mix well.

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.

Cider + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together500 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,577 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

Swap the currant

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

Applefits better
Figfits better
Vanillafits about as well
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, cider, butter, raisin, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.