It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas

It has been a few years since I made Christmas Mincemeat, in fact it was in Rowallane where mince pies where a huge hit. 

I used Delia Smith's Christmas book for the recipe then which is great but thought I would adjust it to make it in a slow cooker and to lighten up the flavours as well as cutting down on the shredded vegi suet used. 

The recipe is fairly straight forward combine all the ingredients into the slow cooker  and give them a really good mix then leave to infuse for 12 hrs in a cool kitchen.

450 g Bramley apples, cored and chopped into small pieces keep the skin on 

100g of firm pear as above

200g shredded vegi suet 

800 g of mixed fruit eg currants, raisins, cranberries, sultanas 

225 g finely chopped mixed candied peel 

350 g unrefined soft dark brown sugar

The grated zest and juice of 1 large orange

The grated zest and juice of 2 lemons

The grated zest and juice of 2 limes

60 g almond slivers 

3 teaspoons of mixed ground spice

2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon 

1 teaspoon of ground ginger 

Grated nutmeg about 1/2 of one 

Give this a good mix then after 12 hours turn on the slow cooker on low and occasionally stir and cook for 3 hours. 

Turn the slow cooker of and stir every so often as it cools. The fat from the suet will coagulate and coat all of the fruit and apples binding them together, when it is completely cool it's time to add the alcohol.

Delia in her original recipe calls for 6 tablespoons of brandy, I only had a miniature of an almond liqueur which is 2 tablespoons and a 1/4 bottle of whiskey so added the other 4 remaining tablespoons of whiskey + 1 for health.

Store in sterilised dry jam jars or a Kilmer jar. This should keep for a few years in a cool dark cupboard. 

So mince pies soon and a recipe for Christmas Chelsea buns as well as oh I forgot about a Christmas cake recipe.