Mincemeat Is For Life, Not Just For Christmas

I have made a number of things in the run-up to Christmas, about which I haven't blogged, as they are SECRET.  However, I couldn't resist blogging about home-made mincemeat.  Now, the first thing I want to say is that mincemeat is for life, not just for Christmas.  I don't eat that much of it in the run-up to Christmas, so I'm not totally sick of it come January.  Which is good, as it's the perfect pudding/snack for the cold, dark austere post-Christmas months.  Especially hot with cream or custard.  Slaver.  The second thing is that, for some reason, people always think that you are a domestic goddess if you make your own mincemeat.  This is a misconception, as it's incredibly easy (although it is a million times nicer than bought, even the posh stuff) but it's always enjoyable.

This is the recipe I use.  It's based on Delia Smith's recipe, but altered slightly to use a bag of mixed dried fruit from Tesco instead of multiple bags of different dried fruits.  This makes it even more stupendously easy, and also saves you having half-empty bags of currants, raisins, sultanas and mixed peel hanging around your cupboards until next Christmas.  It's much cheaper too.

My Home-made Mincemeat.  Makes 3lbs - double/triple/quadruple quantities for mammoth pie-making
1 Bramley apple, grated
110 grams suet (if you are of the vegetarian persuasion you can get vegetarian suet, but I think that the non-vegetarian kind tastes better)
1 bag of Tesco Every-day Mixed Dried Fruit
175g soft dark sugar
Grated zest and juice of 1 orange
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
25g flaked almonds
2 teaspoons mixed spice
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 tablespoons brandy

1. put all the ingredients apart from the brandy into an oven-proof bowl and stir very well.  Drink brandy.
2. cover the bowl with a clean tea-towl and leave for 12 hours/overnight.
3. cover bowl loosely with tin-foil and put in the oven on a low heat for 3 hours.  I have a fan oven, so about 100C.
4. leave to cool, stirring occasionally (although, if you don't read this bit of the recipe, like I didn't this year, and just abandon it, don't worry, it will taste just as nice, it will just have little white shreds of fat in it, which will melt when you put it in pies anyway).
5. when totally cool, stir in the brandy.  Restrain yourself from eating the resultant heavenly mixture out of the bowl with a spoon - not easy. 
6. put in sterilised jars (sterilising jars is very easy, just wash them, rinse them and put them in a warm oven for about 10 minutes).  It keeps for ages if necessary - like years.

I can't stress enough how amazing home-made mincemeat tastes.  I really did stand and eat it out of the bowl with a spoon, it was that good.  It's warm, rich and spicy, sweet but not too sweet and cloying, and it's not strangely syrupy like the bought stuff.

The third thing I have to say about home-made mincemeat is that I always think it goes better with a very rich, sweet, buttery pastry than standard pastry. 

My Sweet Pastry Mix (makes 6-ish mince pies, double/triple/quadruple quantities for mammoth pie-making)
4oz plain flour (I always make crumbles and pastry in ounces, although I make everything else in grams, as my Mum taught me in ounces and it stuck!)
2oz butter (it has to be butter, accept no substitutes)
2oz caster sugar
1 egg-yolk
1 tablespoon cold water
A pinch of salf

1. weigh out the flour into a mixing bowl.
2. weigh out the butter, cut into cubes, drop into mixing bowl.
3. mix flour and butter together as if you're making a crumble.
4. when the mixture is bread-crumby, mix in the sugar.
5. make a well in the centre of the bread-crumby mixture, put the egg yolk and the water in the well.
6. stir the mixture round and round with a tabke-knife to bring it all together, finish off with your hands to make a ball of dough.
7. wrap in cling-film and put in the fridge for half-an-hour (the secret to good pastry - makes it very easy to roll out).
8. roll out on a floured work-surface, cut into two thirds/one third.
9.  roll out the two-thirds and use the biggest size of pastry-cutter to make the mince-pie bases (pastry-cutters tend to come in packs of three sizes. 
10. oil the cups of a cake-tin (you know what I mean, a baking tray with cup-cake sized holes in, I've totally forgotten the right word)
11. put your pastry circles in, drop a teaspoon of mincemeat in each pastry circle.
12 roll out your one-third and use it to make the tops of the pies.  You can use the smallest pastry-cutter, I like to use hearts or stars.  Any scraps of left-over pastry can be used to make mince-meat pasties/Weight Watcher single-layer pies (see pictures below!).
13.  Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.  Swoon with the deliciousness of it all, and enjoy!