Easy Mincemeat Cake Recipe - Fruitcake Christmas Cheat

Want to make a Christmas cake without buying a tonne of ingredients you might not use again? Then this rich and easy mincemeat cake recipe is for you! It still tastes delicious, fed with brandy and makes the perfect last-minute gift. I'll show you some easy ratio adjustments you can make, such as apple and mincemeat cake.

I love making mincemeat Christmas cake for gifts every year. But when you have a lot of family members to make them for, by the 4th one, it can start to feel a chore.

Not only that, I worked out the other day it can cost about £10 each to make. And that's not including buying ready rolled icing sugar or marzipan yet to decorate. Note: I've since shared how to ice a cake without a cake board and give away in these tins!

But it's so easy to get carried away because baking Christmas cakes, in my opinion, is a labour of love. Yet buying a factory Christmas cake just isn't the same. Also, let's face it, it can be SO much fun playing around with ingredients and making personalised Christmas cakes.

Mincemeat Cake Recipe - Easy Cheat

Ok, so what makes this mincemeat cake recipe easier than others? It's simple. Because it uses not one, but two jars of traditional mincemeat without the need to add more fruit. In fact, I think it's the best mincemeat recipe baking it in a Christmas cake for beginners.

Many mincemeat cake recipes online will suggest that you only buy a luxury mincemeat. But personally, I haven't been able to get any when my online food shop arrives and it's been substituted. Also, how many of us have followed a recipe that asks for 20 different things and still have old bags of dried fruit in the baking cupboard?

And the last time you baked a Christmas cake was in 2015? Well, this Christmas mincemeat recipe in a cake puts an end to all of this waste. AND, you still have a little room to add some dried fruit you have hanging around if you wish.

Equipment I Use to Make Easy Mincemeat Fruit Cake Recipe

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• Jam pan or large saucepan
• Spatula
• 20cm round cake tin
• baking paper
• Measuring spoons
• Weighing scales
• Measuring jug

Note, the reason I boil the mincemeat first is so the dried fruits become extra plump full of brandy and sugar already in the sauce. You'll also find it makes a very moist fruity Christmas cake.

Extra Options

If you can spare a few more ingredients, it can become an extra special Christmas mincemeat cake when adding the following to the jam pan and reduce:

• 100g butter
• 100g dark muscovado sugar

You may want to use a fine grater and juicer, too, if you want to add some lemon and orange zest and juice to your mincemeat Christmas cake recipe.

Other Cake Tin Equivalents

Mincemeat Square Cake

If you want to make a square Christmas cake, then you use an 18cm (7 inche) square tin.

Mincemeat Loaf Cake

If you fancy making a mincemeat loaf recipe, then you could opt for a 2lb loaf tin instead. You may find this easier to control the calories in a mincemeat slice.

Mincemeat Bundt Cake

I haven't made my mincemeat cake in the form of a fruit bundt cake yet. However, after a bit of googling, many suggest that this 27cm fluted ring cake is perfect for the job!

Mincemeat Cake Traybake

For a mincemeat traybake, then you could opt for a 9 inch Swiss roll tin, but I suspect you won't need to cook it for as long. Watch this space, as I'll be trying it soon, but it would be perfect to make mincemeat bars or squares.

Mincemeat Muffins

This is another one I haven't tried, but due to the amount of time it takes to bake, I would try to create mini muffins to help speed things up.

How to Make Easy Fruit Mince Cake

Firstly, you'll find a printable recipe for my homemade mincemeat cake in a recipe card below. This includes a full list of cake and mincemeat ingredients. But I'll show you how I make it in a nutshell here so you can judge quickly if this is what you're looking for.

• Chuck both jars of mincemeat, 100ml of brandy and black treacle in a large jam pan and boil and stir. You need to continue cooking mincemeat until it has thickened and reduced. The consistency you should be looking for is a jarred mincemeat turned into a thick toffee sauce. Then allow it to cool.
  
• Stir in the beaten eggs and combine. What I've found is that if you mix the eggs straight in without beating, it will have a glossy sheen on top after baking and give an uneven rise.
  
• Mix in the ground and sliced almonds. If you have a nut allergy, then you can skip the ground almonds and swap sliced almonds for, say, 90g of glacé cherries. I've also boiled 600g of thawed chopped eating apples with it to make apple and mincemeat cake and it also works perfectly! Note, the ground almonds is to enhance the flavour and create a moist Christmas cake, but it will still work without, like a pound Christmas cake.
• Stir in the flour, spice and baking powder. Do this gently until there are no traces of flour left.

Is Vegan Mincemeat OK to Use in This Recipe?

Yes! In fact, the mincemeat I received as a substitute for luxury mincemeat was Tesco mincemeat and it was vegan. This mince cake also doesn't use butter as it gets its oils from the vegan suet. But, if you wanted, you could add a vegan butter or spread while you boil the fruit mincemeat.

If you specifically wanted to make a vegan mincemeat cake, then you would need to ensure two things. That the brandy of 40% alcohol you're using is vegan and use a large egg substitue.

And I know I may be stating the obvious here, but if it's Vegan, it's also a Vegetarian mincemeat recipe that is used.

Vegan Egg Substitutes You Could Try

Replace 1 egg with:

• 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda + 1 tablespoon of vinegar
• 1 tablespoon of chia seeds + 3 tablespoon of water and leave to soak for 5 minutes
• 1 tablespoon of flaxseeds + 3 tablespoon of water and leave to soak for 5 minutes
• ¼ applesauce

Other Ways to Enhance This Cake Recipe Using Mincemeat

As you now know, this is a very easy Christmas cake recipe that doesn't require hours of baking. My first ever cake recipe I baked took over 4 hours in the oven, so this is bliss!

You'll also notice, I added black treacle to enhance the flavours and make it an extra sweet mincemeat recipe before mixing in batter. But there are other additions you could make. Such as:

• Add a variety of spices, like ground cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom to name a few. But, sometimes I prefer to use what I have lots of, such as ground mixed spice.
• While boiling the mincemeat to thicken, add some cherries, mixed peel, etc if you have it. But I've kept this a very simple mincemeat recipe by using jarred.
• Add some lemon and orange zest. However, I didn't feel this was necessary as the vegan mincemeat I bought had it in and was stated on the label.
• Instead of sliced almonds, stir in your favourite blanched nuts, such as macadamia nuts, etc. Note, it's best to blanch them to remove the skins before adding to the mixture.

Storing This Mincemeat Cake Recipe

Due to the twice fed brandy and sugar from the mincemeat, storing this Christmas cake is rather simple. All I do is:

• Once cooled, wrap your Christmas mincemeat cake twice in clingfilm, then tin foil and store in a cake tin or tub.
• If giving as a food hamper gift, this year, we've bought a Heroes tin of chocolates for each person. We're storing mincemeat cakes in them and placed the chocolates in a posh gift bag, and each will also get a bottle of mulled wine.
• I also tend to leave it under the bed, giving it as much time to mature as possible.
• I'll also feed it extra brandy every few weeks, but this isn't vital as we'll feed it while it cools down, but my family are all about the boozy mincemeat cake!
• This cake should last months, which is why people tend to make boozy Christmas cakes from September.

More Recipes You Might Like

• You could try a mincemeat sponge cake, by swapping these pears and chocolate for 1 jar. I am yet to try more cake recipes using mincemeat, but I think you'd have to reduce the butter quantity due to the suet in a jar.
  
• Try this same method, but you can make mincemeat quicker than a traditional mincemeat recipe instead of a mincemeat pie filling jar. Also, did you know that you can make homemade mincemeat in a slow cooker?
  
• Other Christmas food hamper gifts that my family love are these large personalised EASY chocolate slabs in the style of Hotel Chocolat. You can have so much fun by decorating with someone's favourite chocolate bar, like a Crunchie, cookies, marshmallows, etc.
  
• Seriously rich Christmas fridge cake with Amaretto liqueur throughout, melted chocolate, dried fruit and mixed peel and sliced almonds.
  
• Mince pie rocky road like a festive fruit and nut chocolate with nuts, biscuits and marshmallows!
  
• Easy apple dump cake, again, using frozen and thawed apples, but using the juice too.
  
• Christmas Apple and mincemeat crumble, using frozen eating apples or fresh cooking apples with a splash of Amareto.
  
• Another one of the mincemeat recipes I love is my super easy mince pie pinwheels. This is an easy mince pie recipe for beginners and uses any mincemeat, puff pastry and caster sugar to dust. You don't need any skill and are deliciously rustic.

How to Make Mincemeat Fruit the SUPER EASY Way!

📖 Recipe

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