Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Mince Pies
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the pastry
Make a paste with flour, butter, egg yolk, and lemon juice, rolling it out thinly.
Butter 12 pattypans and cut out 24 rounds of paste to fit the pans.
Fill and top
Place one round in each pan, wet the edges, and fill with mince meat.
Cut a small slit in another round of paste and place it on top as a lid.
Repeat until all are filled and topped.
Bake and serve
Beat the egg white and brush it over the tops, then sift fine sugar on top.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 20 minutes and serve hot.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Butter + meattop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,594 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the pastry paste.
- Butter
- Adds fat that makes the pastry tender and flaky.
- Egg
- Binds the paste and adds richness and colour.
- Lemon juice
- Adds a touch of acidity that brightens the pastry flavour.
The step that matters
Wet the edges before topping. Moistening the pastry edges helps the lid seal to the base so filling does not leak and the pie holds together while baking.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, egg, meat):
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Vanillafits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg, meat. 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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