While frantically trying to clear my backlog of restaurant reviews in order to take my blog on its new Second Year journey, I do need to post this recipe in a timely fashion for Christmas: Fruit Mince!
Good for so much more than just mince pies – try some stirred into ice cream!
Charged with making the mince pies for the family Christmas this year, I thought I’d try making fruit mince from scratch. How hard could it be? But then, the enormity of my task struck me: there are about 500,000,000 recipes out there for fruit mince. What if I pick the wrong one?
After reviewing a few likely options and rejecting them for various reasons:
- Delia Smith’s Christmas: wanted me to source suet, can’t be bothered
- Australian Women’s Weekly Christmas Book: had plum jam in it, thought that was odd
- Nigella: needed port, clementines, and also used almond essence, bleurgh. Cranberries were a good idea though, so I stole that idea…
- Jamie Oliver: used a jar (Jamie!)
- Taste.com.au (various options): can’t remember why I rejected these. Perhaps not enough brandy.
I ended up going with the doyenne of Australian kitchens Margaret Fulton‘s recipe, mostly because of the highly scientific “her recipe seems to gel the most with what I have in the cupboard and have already bought from the supermarket” method. And it had cranberries in it!
What follows is a recipe for spicy, Christmas-smelling fruit mince, with some adaptations from her recipe because life’s fun like that (plus she uses a food processor to chop the fruit, which I haven’t got). Haven’t made the mince pies yet, but the fruit mince is maturing in the fridge nicely (Must. Stop. Eating. Little Teaspoons. Of It. All The Time).
Ingredients:
- 8 1/2 cups of mixed fruit (I used a 1kg bag of mixed fruit with peel, which was about 7 cups, and made up the difference with chopped dates)
- 1/2 cup cranberries (these create little tangy red jewels in the fruit mince)
- 3/4 cup slivered almonds
- 2 large apples (grated)
- 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
- 150g butter (melted)
- 3/4 cup brandy (I have since added more and stirred it in, I fear my fruit mince will be Highly Boozy)
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp ground cloves
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- grated rind and juice of two oranges (except I didn’t have two so I did 1 orange, 1 lemon)
Method:
Chop the fruit and the nuts in a food processor, or, roughly hack at them with scissors in your largest mixing bowl until you think they’re chopped enough. I like a chunky fruit mince.
Stir all the ingredients together and refrigerate till required! Too easy!
Makes a lot.
Fruit Mince ready for maturing in the fridge
Fresh Bread 