Saturday 3 December 2016

Mincemeat 2016.



When the kitchen table is strewn with Suet from England, dried fruits, and exotic spices from across the world, it means only one thing; Mincemeat for Mince Pies.


Lady Magnon has been shopping in London, and on her list were all those essentials for Dec 25th that we can't find here; she even brought back one of Prince Charles's own Plum puddings. 

I honestly think she's at her happiest when she's making either Mincemeat, Mince Pies, or her seasonal Guinness Cake. 

The kitchen smelt wonderful with the combined aromas of spices, citrus and Armagnac. Mince Pies must be my very favourite accompaniment to a winter cup of Lapsang.

December does have its advantages.



40 comments:

  1. Do you have people calling in and then you get the mince pies out? Otherwise that's a lot of mince pies and cake for you two alone

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    Replies
    1. She usually makes about a dozen at each baking, they don't last long.

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  2. Do the mince pies last till Xmas?! I'm making mulled wine tonight. Xmas is finally in the air.

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    1. The mincemeat will go into jars, then used as required. She won't start making actual pies until much later.

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  3. marvellous. We shall be doing likewise tomorrow - cut down a Christmas tree from our land, dress it, set a fire then make mince pies...

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    Replies
    1. I leave all that till about the 20th (the tree I mean).

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  4. Every year at this time in blogland i get so sorry that i was born Jewish:) Every thing smells and looks so beautiful in the land of "before Christmas".

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    Replies
    1. It's become the 'Food-Fest' season, when for weeks we eat wonderful things. The religious side has almost become irrelevant. Even so, there's nothing nicer than listening to 'Carols from Kings' with a Mince Pie, and glass of Scotch.

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    2. We shall have our Hanuka which is in the same time this year.Lots of candls and light and donuts too.

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    3. I shall be thinking of you all.

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  5. Your house must smell of Christmas and very nice already! Mine is on hold until after the referendum.
    When you show us your daily posts Cro with all the cooking and wonderful other things you do, I always think of Lady M is also working and doing just as much.
    Yael, Jewish also have beautiful traditions.
    Greetings Maria x

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    Replies
    1. Yes, Lady M loves to have her hands covered in flour. She does all the sweet cooking; I do all the savoury.

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    2. Sunday Italy will upset EU very very much Maria.

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    3. I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

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    4. Thank you Maria, i know, but here in blogland all the smells and colors of Christmas are so wonderful:)

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  6. Haven't made mincemeat for years, but I still imagine the wonderful aroma of mixed spices.
    We can buy most Christmas essentials here, and next week we'll going shopping to Iceland (the store - not the country!) where I'll buy their ready-made mince pies. Sacrilege I know, but much easier, and they aren't too bad. Also on the list are things like icing sugar and marzipan to ice the cake, which is about to have it's first infusion of brandy.

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    Replies
    1. There's very little to compare with entering a warm kitchen, with the aroma of baking Mince Pies coming from the oven; and maybe some carols on the radio.

      If we were in England we would either buy ready made pies, or buy really good quality jars of mincemeat and make them with that. Lady M hasn't made her cake yet, but I've seen her looking at her recipe. She makes a 'seasonal' Guinness cake.

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  7. I've always thought that home made mincemeat was too much trouble but I am tempted to try making it, just to be sure.
    The idea of a seasonal Guinness cake sounds good. Is it a kind of chocolate Guinness cake with fruit in it, or a fruit cake with Guinness in it? I hope to hear more about it!

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    Replies
    1. It's a classic rich fruit cake (no chocolate) with Guinness and added brandy. I expect the recipe can be found on line. She makes the same every year, and every year it's very good.

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    2. Delia's Christmas Cake recipe fits the bill Jean. Very classic and very moist.

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  8. Unfortunately The Doc. has told my husband No More Sweet Cakes & Biscuits. This means I shall have to share the pain. What poor timeing as we shall have to miss out on these festive treats.

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    Replies
    1. My Doc' has told me the same thing, but occasionally I ignore him.

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    2. The Diamicron is just not cutting it these days- apparently.

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  9. All sounds lovely! I can just imagine the scene in your kitchen. I make the mincemeat and lace it with cointreau, the pudding is from a recipe cut off the side of an Atora packet and the cake is a wedding cake recipe from an old Stork margarine cookbook but with butter instead of margarine all exactly the way my grandma made them mixed in her old mixing bowl it is a link to Christmases past that means so much.

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    1. The Cointreau sounds good. Weaver recently reported that her village mince-pie competition was won by someone who made her pastry with orange juice.

      Unfortunately our old family mixing bowl is in the UK somewhere, but we have many other things that date back several decades. It's always fun to bring them all out again, even for a few days.

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    2. Our mixing bowl used to be a plastic bucket. It was well clean!

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  10. Sounds lovely. I am boiling a ham in cider, to roast tonight with cloves and an English mustard and brown sugar glaze. Unfortunately the cold snap froze all the chilli in the greenhouse before I was able to get them into the freezer! Disaster...

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    Replies
    1. That sounds really good. We don't get those lovely big boiling hams over here; I miss them.

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  11. The aromas and flavours of Christmas ..... just need some brandy butter now !! XXXX

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    Replies
    1. I hope our Pud' will be good; Prince Charles himself made it.

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  12. I can't say that I like mince meat pies, but I love the memory of my mom baking them. Everybody but I loved them and I remember the pride she took in making them at Christmas time.

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    Replies
    1. Christmas wouldn't be Christmas for me without plenty of Mince pies. And don't forget to put one out for Santa.

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  13. Replies
    1. Don't care for mincemeat, but Guiness in any form would be appreciated.

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    2. What is there not to like about mincemeat? Mixed dried fruits, alcohol, and a bit of suet. Delicious!

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  14. When I translated the big Leon Baking book for a German publisher, I wanted it "correct" and thus baked everything to test the recipes (and made a lot of friends in the house in Berlin where we had just moved in, because I distributed lots of the baking-results). One recipe was "Jossy's Orange Mince Pies" (Josceline Dimbleby was the mother of "my" author Henry Dimbleby - she wrote a cookbook for a Supermarket). And her Mincemeat-Pies were so delicious!

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    Replies
    1. It does seem that Mince Pies can take a lot of Orange flavour. I'm looking forward to trying the orange flavoured pastry.

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  15. I don't think I'll have time to make a cake this year but I'm looking forward to mince pies. We will cheat and use frozen pastry and jar mincemeat but they will still taste good.

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    Replies
    1. Lady M only started making her own Mincemeat because it was unavailable here, but we've had excellent shop-bought jars back in the UK.

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