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Mince Pies

A fruit and spice mincemeat filling baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Mince Pies

Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

Mince Pies

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the mincemeat

  1. Stove and mince the raisins, suet, apples, candied peel, almonds, and sultanas.

  2. Mix these with the currants, sugar, mixed spice, lemon and orange rind, brandy, sherry, and the juices of the oranges and lemons.

  3. Put the mixture in jars, cover, and keep for at least three weeks.

Make and fill the pies

  1. To prepare the pies, make puff pastry using ½ lb flour.

  2. Roll out a portion about ½ inch thick and line patty tins with it.

  3. Place 1 teaspoon of the mincemeat in the center of each lined tin.

  4. Roll out the remaining pastry about ¼ inch thick and cut rounds for the tops.

  5. Wet the edges of the bottom pastry and place a round on top of each pie.

Bake

  1. Brush with egg and bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Brandy + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Orange + appletop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  5. Apple + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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 mincemeat.
Currants
Provide chewy body and concentrated sweetness to the filling.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness to the mincemeat.
Demerara sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it deepen in flavor as it matures.
Brandy
Adds aroma and acts as a preservative while the mincemeat matures.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that balance the sweet dried fruit.

The step that matters

Keep the mincemeat for at least three weeks. Resting lets the alcohol, sugar, and spices blend and mellow, and the high sugar and alcohol content helps preserve the fruit so the filling tastes rounder and less harsh.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (currant, raisin, orange, apple, sugar, brandy, sherry):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against currant, raisin, orange, apple, sugar, brandy, sherry. 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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