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Dessert

Mock Mincemeat Pies

A pastry pie filled with a mixture of apples, currants, sugar, spice, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,918 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Mock Mincemeat Pies

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pastry

  1. Make a plain short crust pastry.

  2. Chop the apples finely.

  3. Mix the chopped apples with currants, sugar, spice, and nutmeg.

  4. Roll out the pastry to ½ inch thickness.

  5. Cut the pastry into shapes: round, square, or oblong.

Fill and shape

  1. Spread half of the shapes with the mixture.

  2. Fold the shapes over.

  3. Wet the edges.

  4. Press the shapes together.

  5. Cut 2 or 3 slits in the top.

  6. Ornament the edges.

Bake

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

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. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Currant + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,983 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Short crust pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky case that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Apples
Provide moisture and tart fruit flavour that fills the mincemeat-style filling.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it become syrupy and rich as it bakes.
Nutmeg
Adds warm aroma that characterises mincemeat-style fillings.

The step that matters

Wet the edges before pressing the shapes together. Moisture helps the pastry edges stick, so the filling stays sealed in during baking instead of leaking out as the juices warm and expand.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, nutmeg):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, nutmeg. 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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