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Mince-Pies

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and lemon work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 623 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Mince-Pies

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slack oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

  1. Preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Lay fine sugar at the bottom of a baking dish.

  3. Add plums, cherries, or any other fruit, and sprinkle more sugar on top.

  4. Cover with a lid and bake in a slack oven.

  5. For the filling, pare and quarter apples and pears, then core them.

  6. Place the fruit in a saucepan with just enough water to cover.

  7. Simmer on low heat until the fruit is tender, adding a piece of lemon peel.

  8. Prepare your patties with puff pastry.

  9. Layer fine sugar at the bottom, add the cooked fruit, and sprinkle with more sugar.

  10. Pour a teaspoon of lemon juice and three teaspoons of the cooking liquid over each tart.

  11. Cover with a lid and bake in a slack oven.

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. Plum + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together623 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + plumtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Swap the plum

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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