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Dessert

Mince Pies

Mince pies are small pastries filled with mincemeat and topped with puff pastry, brushed with egg and sprinkled with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Mince Pies

Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mince Pies

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Butter a pie dish and fill it liberally with mincemeat.

  3. Cover with a thicker layer of puff pastry.

Bake and serve

  1. Whisk the egg and brush it over the pastry.

  2. Bake for 25 minutes.

  3. Sprinkle fine sugar over the pies 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.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, layered crust that rises and crisps in the oven.
Mincemeat
Provides the sweet, spiced, moist filling.
Egg
Glazes the pastry, promoting a glossy, golden-brown surface.
Fine sugar
Adds sweetness and a light sugary finish on top.

The step that matters

Bake for 25 minutes at 400°F. Puff pastry relies on a hot oven: the butter in its layers releases steam that lifts the dough into flaky sheets. If the oven is too cool, the butter melts out slowly and the pastry turns greasy and dense rather than crisp and risen.

“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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