Skip to main content
Dessert

Mince Pie

A savory pie filled with minced meat, raisins, currants, and spices, baked in a double crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, combine minced meat, sugar, raisins, currants, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and salt.

  3. Stir in brandy and lemon juice until well mixed.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the filling into the pie crust.

  2. Cover with another layer of pie crust, sealing the edges.

  3. Cut slits in the top crust for steam to escape.

  4. Bake for 45 minutes or 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.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Minced meat
Forms the savoury body of the filling that the pie is built around.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling taste rounded against the spices.
Raisins
Add moisture and chewy sweetness as they soften in the filling.
Currants
Add concentrated fruity sweetness and moisture to the filling.
Brandy
Adds aroma and helps carry the spice flavours through the filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, sweet filling.

The step that matters

Cut steam slits in the top crust. Without vents, steam from the moist, fruit-and-meat filling builds pressure under the crust, which can lift or split the pastry and leak juices during baking.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, sugar, raisin, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, brandy):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, sugar, raisin, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, brandy. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes