Plum and Apple Mincemeat

Those who know me know I hate Christmas before 1st December! However, as with all good things, this recipe ideally needs a little time to mature so I wanted to share it in advance of my traditional mince pie baking on 1st December.

The name ‘mincemeat’ originates from when chopped meat was preserved with dried fruit, sugar and spices. The meat was later replaced with suet. However, I’m not a fan of the suet part of mincemeat, I don’t like the texture and much prefer to make my own. I like to use foraged or homegrown fruit, but you can use shop bought if you have not managed to forage or grow any. You can vary the fruit too if you wish - pears work really well (see tip below). It is different each year I make it, varying with the combination of sweetness and tartness of the fruit used that year. I love this mincemeat and often just eat a spoonful of it on its own or add it to yoghurt – who needs the pastry?! It does make a lovely mince pie though.

As above, this recipe ideally needs a little time to mature. I usually leave it a month before using but you could use it straight away if you wanted. I think it tastes lovely as soon as it comes out of the oven when I obviously have to sample before decanting into jars!

This recipe is adapted from the River Cottage Handbook No.2, Preserves by Pam Corbin. Pam’s recipes are always reliable and my first choice for preserves.

Use within 12 months. Once opened store in the fridge

Makes 4 x 450g jars

Ingredients

1kg plums

500g eating apples (this varies for me according to what we have foraged each year), peeled, cored, and chopped into small pieces (around 1cm or smaller)

Finely grated zest and juice for 2-3 oranges

Finely grated zest from one lemon

600g of a mixture of raisins, sultanas and currants if you wish (I often don’t add currants, instead using just raisins and sultanas which I prefer)

100g homemade candied peel/orange marmalade

250g demerara sugar

½ tsp nutmeg, grated

½ tsp ground cloves

2 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp ground cinnamon

50ml ginger wine/spiced rum or vodka (optional)

100g mixture of chopped walnuts and almonds

To be added after cooking - 50ml brandy/whisky/spiced gin, rum or vodka (depending on what you may have)

Method

1. Wash the plums, halve and remove the stones.

2. Place these into a saucepan with the orange juice and cook gently until tender. This may take about 15 minutes, although if you have frozen the plums first (which we usually do), they will have a softer consistency once thawed so less time will be needed.

3. Blend this mixture to a puree. You should end up with approximately 700ml of puree.

4. Put the puree into a large bowl and add all the other ingredients, apart from the 50ml brandy/whisky/spiced gin or vodka.

5. Mix well, cover and leave to stand for at least 12 hours for the chopped and dried fruits to absorb the juices and flavours.

6. Preheat the oven to 130°C.

7. Put the mincemeat into a large baking dish and bake, uncovered for approximately 1.5-2 hours. You may need to stir the mixture every so often to allow it to cook evenly and to make sure it doesn’t burn.

8. Once cooked, stir in the extra brandy/whisky/spiced gin or vodka and spoon the mixture into sterilised jars, ensuring there are no air pockets.

Seal and store in a dark, cool place until December.

Variations

You can vary the recipe, providing you keep the fresh fruit puree to approximately 700ml and the amount of dried fruit to 600g. I have tried swapping the chopped apples for pears and pureeing apples along with the plum mixture. You could also replace 100g of the dried fruit with stem ginger or cherries, or a mixture of both. You can also adjust the spicing according to your taste. I love cinnamon so always add it, but you can remove this or add other spices such as cardamom, which would also work well.

Tip

Sterilising jars – to sterilise jars wash the jars in very hot, soapy water, rinse thoroughly and dry them in a very low oven. You could also put them through a very hot dishwasher cycle.

Clean jars not long before you need to use them, ensuring they are dry before use.

Hot preserves are best put into warm jars, so these may not be completely dry.