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Dessert

Mince Pie

A pie filled with chopped apples and boiled beef, sweetened with molasses and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

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 the filling

  1. Chop the apples and boiled beef finely.

  2. In a large bowl, mix the apples, beef, butter or drippings, molasses, water, allspice, cinnamon, salt, cloves, vinegar, and grated nutmeg until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and cover with another crust.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until the crust is golden brown.

  3. Let cool before serving.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the bulk and moist, tart body of the filling.
Boiled beef
Adds savoury meat richness and substance to the filling.
Butter or beef drippings
Adds fat for richness and a silkier mouthfeel in the filling.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and depth, and helps the filling brown as it bakes.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, rich filling.

The step that matters

Let cool before serving. The filling is hot, moist and sugary, so it stays runny and can scald when first cut. Resting lets the juices thicken and settle, giving a cleaner slice.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, molasses, allspice, cinnamon, clove, vinegar):

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Orangefits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, molasses, allspice, cinnamon, clove, vinegar. 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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