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Dessert

Mock Mince Pie

A sweet pie made with molasses, raisins, apples, citrus, and spices, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Mock Mince Pie

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Mock Mince Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Beat the egg until light and add it to the butter mixture.

  3. Stir in the molasses, vinegar, raisins, chopped apples, lemon, orange, currants, citron, and chopped soda crackers.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the cold water and add it to the mixture.

  5. Season with nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into pie crusts and bake until set.

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

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

  2. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the filling its moist, rich body.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, moisture and a dark, caramel-like flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Apples
Add moisture and a tart fruitiness that balances the sweetness.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acids in the vinegar and molasses to create gas bubbles that lighten the filling.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the cold water and add it to the mixture. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and evenly distributed so it reacts uniformly with the acidic ingredients. Clumps can leave bitter, soapy pockets and uneven lift.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, molasses, vinegar, butter, apple, lemon, orange):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, vinegar, butter, apple, lemon, orange. 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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