Until about five years ago I could never be bothered to make my own mincemeat. Why go to all that trouble when you can buy it readymade in jars? It was when my late mother in law told me that making your own mincemeat was so easy, that I thought I might as well give it a go myself.

My mother in law loved cooking and baking. She used to use Delia’s recipe in her Christmas book where the mincemeat baked slowly on a low heat in her oven whilst she was doing other things. I tried this for a couple of years and realised that homemade mincemeat tastes delicious. This year I decided to go for a change and looked to Nigella for inspiration.

Nigella has a whole Christmas section in her Domestic Goddess book, which is where I looked first for Christmas recipes. Her recipe entitled Hettie Potter’s Suet Free Mincemeat looked delicious and easy to follow. Not everyone is keen on suet and I must admit it’s not something I use regularly. I don’t think I have ever made a suet pudding, apart from putting it in the Christmas pudding. It was interesting to see cider as an ingredient in the mincemeat, rather than brandy or whisky! Although this recipe contains both brandy and cider! Very potent!

My own Stir Up Sunday was actually eight days later! I had prepped all the dried fruit for my Christmas Cake and pudding exactly a week after but used the Monday at home to bake. More about the cake and pudding in a later post!

I was glad that this mincemeat didn’t need to be baked, but rather heated and then simmered in a large saucepan on my hob. That meant it could be cooked as the cake was baking and the pudding was steaming in the slow cooker.

All that I needed to do was to put some soft brown sugar in the pan with some medium dry cider. The recipe used approximately half a bottle. Unfortunately I couldn’t enjoy the rest of the cider as it was mid afternoon and I had to go out later that day to pick my son up from work! Once the sugar had dissolved, I added chopped Bramley apples, mixed spice, cinnamon, currants, raisins, glace cherries and some blanched almonds. As well as this I added in some lemon rind and a little lemon juice. The mixture had to simmer on a low heat for about half an hour so that the apples had softened and gone more squishy. When this had happened, I then took the mincemeat off the heat and stirred in some brandy.

This recipe makes approximately 2kg of mincemeat which is enough to last me throughout the festive season for home use. It smelled absolutely delicious and I can’t wait to put it in some mince pies as soon as I can!

Happy Christmas Baking!

Love Sam. xx