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Dessert

Mock Mince Pie

A sweet pie made with raisins, molasses, and soaked bread, baked in a puff pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Mock Mince Pie

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line a pie plate with the puff pastry.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar until well combined.

  2. Add the soaked bread, molasses, vinegar, water, raisins, salt, cloves, cinnamon, and pepper, then mix well.

Bake

  1. Pour the filling into the prepared pie crust.

  2. Cover with strips of crust and bake for 30 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set as the pie bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps sweeten the custardy filling.
Molasses
Adds dark color, deep sweetness and a rich flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sweetness of the molasses and sugar.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the filling.
Bread
Soaked in water, it adds body and moisture to the filling.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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