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Dessert

Mince Pies

A pastry case filled with a mixture of suet, currants, raisins, apples, sugar, wine, brandy, lemon peel, candied peel, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Mince Pies

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 ↓

Mince Pies

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.

Make the mincemeat

  1. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl.

Assemble the pies

  1. Line small patty pans with puff pastry.

  2. Fill each lined pan with the mince meat mixture.

  3. Cover with more puff pastry and seal the edges.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) 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.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Apple + white winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the mincemeat rich and moist as it bakes.
Currants
Provide chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness to the filling.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that balances the sugar.
Moist sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps keep it soft and moist.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, raisin, apple, sugar, white wine, brandy, cinnamon):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, raisin, apple, sugar, white wine, brandy, 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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