Cranberry fest starts

It’s a dreich day here on the island – cold, grey and rainy – so I decided to make my annual batch of cranberry mincemeat for Christmas.

I’ve always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with mincemeat. Cranberry mincemeat, which I discovered about ten years ago, seemed to be the perfect antidote to that. Less clove-heavy and dark. More fruity and zesty.

However I’ve increasingly started to dislike the texture of suet in my mincemeat, even vegetarian suet, but most recipes use it for shelf stability and preservation purposes so it’s in most things. I could replace it with butter, and some recipes do, but I haven’t experimented with that yet.

I’ve found a recipe that doesn’t use any fat at all (I’m really not anti-fat, but it seemed worth a try) and although the cooked mincemeat will only last six weeks or so in jars in the fridge, I can always freeze any left after that time has elapsed.

And I think it’s going to be worth it for the fresh, zesty taste that it will add to sweet pies and crumbles. I tasted as I cooked and it’s delicious.

The recipe is here https://fromthelarder.co.uk/cranberry-cointreau-mincemeat/

I’ll start making my cranberry frangipane mince pies once we hit December and try and stash a bag or two of them in the freezer for walk-ins.

There’s always a flurry of baking activity when the fresh cranberries are for sale. I also made this cranberry traybake. Just because.

It should have been drizzled with icing but I’m afraid we showed all the restraint of a bunch of goats rampaging through a willow patch and it didn’t happen. ..