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Dessert

Mock Mince-meat, Without Meat

A sweet, spiced mixture of raisins, molasses, and spices, served as a non‑meat mincemeat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Mock Mince-meat, Without Meat

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine cold water and raisins in a saucepan and cook for a few minutes.

  2. Add brown sugar and molasses, then cider vinegar, followed by the remaining ingredients.

  3. Stir in the brandy.

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

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

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Provide chewy texture and natural sweetness that bulk out the filling.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, moisture and a dark caramel flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture while deepening the flavour.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar and molasses.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cooking the raisins in water before adding the rest. Simmering the raisins softens them and draws out their flavour and moisture so they blend evenly into the filling. Adding the sugars and other ingredients to undercooked raisins can leave them tough and unevenly textured.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, sugar, cider, vinegar, butter, egg, cinnamon):

  1. Applefits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, cider, vinegar, butter, egg, cinnamon. 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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