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Dessert

Mince Pies

A fruit pie filled with raisins, currants, apples, candied lemon peel, candied orange peel, spices, and suet, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Mince Pies

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mince Pies

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Stone and chop the raisins slightly.

  2. Combine raisins, currants, sugar, suet, candied lemon peel, candied orange peel, grated apples, cinnamon, nutmegs, lemon juice, and grated lemon rinds in a large bowl. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

Bake

  1. Fill pie crusts with the mixture and bake.

  2. Bake in a moderate 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  4. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds richness and fat, keeping the filling moist and tender as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it caramelise lightly during baking.
Raisins
Provide chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the filling.
Grated apples
Add moisture and tartness that balances the sweetness of the dried fruit.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Baking long enough lets the sugar and fats brown and develop flavour, while the moist fruit filling cooks through. Underbaking leaves the filling wet and the crust pale.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, lemon, orange, apple, cinnamon, 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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