Mincemeat cake

If you’ve got any leftover jars of mincemeat in the cupboard it’s a good excuse to make a cake. The other weekend we went to visit my parents and my mum had made one of these cakes, from a Mary Berry recipe (Mary’s becoming a theme!). It’s a really tasty, moist fruit cake and it didn’t last very long at all. I knew I had a jar of mincemeat left over from Christmas (I didn’t manage to make any homemade mincemeat this year and even had to pay my daughter to make mince pies at one point). Homemade mincemeat is unlikely to last the year so this is a good use for it if you still have any. I thought my store-bought jar would need using up but the best before date on it was actually 2016. I still made the cake anyway…

This cake takes just a few minutes to put together but needs a long, slow cooking time. I think I had my oven a little hot as the top and edges are very brown but I don’t think it matters. I covered the cake with aluminium foil towards the end of the baking time and probably should have done it sooner. Mary’s recipe is an all-in-one but I added the ingredients in stages, just to make sure they were properly mixed and the flour didn’t get overworked: you could just throw everything except the flaked almonds into the bowl and mix.

Recipe

Ingredients

150g softened butter or margarine

150g soft brown sugar

2 eggs

410g jar of mincemeat

75g sultanas

225g SR flour

25g flaked almonds

Method

Heat the oven to 160ºC. Grease, and line the base of, a deep-sided, loose-based 8″ cake tin.

Put the butter or margarine, sugar, eggs and mincemeat into a mixing bowl and mix well.

Add the sultanas and mix in.

Sieve in the flour and fold in.

Tip the mixture into the cake tin and level gently. Sprinkle the almonds over the top.

Ready to bake

Bake for around 1¾ hours, until the cake is golden brown and firm to the touch. A skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean.

Allow to cool in the tin for a while before removing and putting on a cooling rack.

Allow to cool in the tin for a while

Categories: Baking, Cakes, Recipes

Tags: baking, cake, dried fruit, flaked almonds, fruit, Mary Berry, mincemeat, raisins, recipe