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Dessert

Lemon Mince Pies

A pie made with suet, raisins, currants, candied fruit, lemon zest, spices, and fortified wine, baked in short crust pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Lemon Mince Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Combine minced suet, minced raisins, mace, cinnamon, cloves, powdered sugar, coarse sea salt, lemon rinds, lemon juice, port, and brandy in a large bowl, and mix well.

  2. Prepare a deep pan and add the mixture.

  3. Add washed and dried currants and candied fruit.

Bake

  1. Make a short crust pastry and fill pattypans with the mixture.

  2. Bake 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.

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

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

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  5. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture to the filling.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy body to the filling.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it hold together as it bakes.
Currants
Contribute tart fruitiness and chewy texture to the filling.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, cinnamon, clove, sugar, lemon, brandy, currant. 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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