Mincemeat recipe from BBC Good Food James Martin
As a child, mincemeat seemed like an unpleasant mystery to me. I didn't like the idea of "minced meat," and definitely did not want to consider having it in a pie. As an adult I remember at my first Thanksgiving held outside of my familial home, a "friends-giving," a friend brought a home-made mincemeat pie of which he was quite proud. No one ate it.
Even once I understood that the mincemeat pies of today no longer contain any actual meat, but simply ground suet (the pre-cursor to vegetable shortening), the idea did not thrill me. Somewhere between that time and 2020, with my long-time love of historic foodways, vintage recipes, pre-1940 women's magazines, and watching every single episode of Victorian Farm, Edwardian Farm, Wartime Farm and Tudor Farm I could get my hands on (multiple times), I longed to try these recipes. The first batch I made was in 2020. Having actually broken out and used my digital scale, I was awestruck by the accuracy of using grams rather than standard American measurements in a recipe. I got exactly the amount you see above as predicted by the recipe. Perfectly so. This amazed me for some reason. So much so that I now prefer to work with recipes that provide gram measurements. When we tried it in little pies, it was delicious. I used the best quality ingredients. One might even say it was divine. My sons and I loved it. *A single note of warning, if you can find a butcher to grate you 300 grams of suet do it. Your arm will thank you. I bought my own and grated it frozen. It worked, but it ain't easy.
Those four pint jars went a long way. I looked up uses and had found a mincemeat muffin recipe which was very good. Fast forward to 2023 when I made my second batch. I had planned to gift some to my neighbors only to find out they were moving to a more vegan diet. I ended up keeping the lot. Not everyone can bake or wants to, and many still hold an unnatural, albeit understandable fear and misunderstanding of mincemeat.
Fast forward two years later as of today and when going out to our garage refrigerator I remembered I had one jar left. I wondered...could it still possibly be good? I opened it and gave it the smell test. It smelled fine. It didn't smell off, or like an old refrigerator, or even stale. I thought about using it up, as of course, the holidays are right around the corner, and it's almost time to make more mincemeat.
Last year's holiday season was a blur. My adult son had to suddenly move back home in early December. The remainder of December was spent re-arranging our home and lives to make the necessary space. Note to self: holiday time is not the ideal time to do this. During that time my former husband underwent massive heart surgery and my husband's car died. We experienced a significant and noticeable lack of merriment over last holiday season. With life settling down a little this year, I am looking forward to re-instating my traditional baking, including a plum pudding put together on stir-up Sunday.
But back to the mincemeat. This well preserved food item reminded me of just how long we had to make do and preserve food as best as we could before refrigeration. With the rising prices of the present day (where suddenly ground meat and stew beef are luxury items), I am eternally grateful for having been raised by two people who survived the depression. My list of skills in preserving and using up and making do is virtually endless. As is the ingrained personality trait of "waste not, want not." In a world that feels like it's moving backward, these are the skills to have.
So, I took my now nearly two year old jar of mincemeat and pulled out the mincemeat muffin recipe, only I decided I felt it would be better as a scone. I pulled out my scone pan and got to work, just a little bit nervous of how the final product might come out. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. They came out beautifully and I topped them off with a simple vanilla orange glaze. I've included the recipe below with my gluten free modifications. So I say, give mincemeat a chance.
Mincemeat Muffins original recipe from Dinner With Julie. My substitutions for my gluten free version are below:
Gluten Free Mincemeat Muffins
250 grams of Better Batter Gluten Free flour
1/3 cup white sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp pumpkin spice mix or cake spice mix
3/4 c whole milk
1/3 light olive oil
1 large egg
1 packed cup of mincemeat (the home made is on the dryer side compared to a store bought such as Tiptree so do not pack for a jarred brand that has more liquid)
Icing: 1 cup powdered sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla, 1-2 Tblsp orange juice w/zest mixed together until smooth.
Mix together dry ingredients, toss in mincemeat and blend, add wet ingredients. Bake at 375 w/either 12 muffin pan or 8 section scone pan, 25 minutes. Remove from pan and put approximately 1 Tblsp of glaze over each muffin.
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