Mincemeat Pie Recipe, Whats Cooking America (2024)

FAQs

What are the ingredients to mincemeat pie? ›

Mincemeat

Mince pie / Main ingredient

If you are wondering what the difference is between a mince pie and a mincemeat pie, wonder no more—they are the same thing.

A mince pie (also mincemeat pie in North America, and fruit mince pie in Australia and New Zealand) is a sweet pie of English origin filled with mincemeat, being a mixture of fruit, spices and suet. The pies are traditionally served during the Christmas season in much of the English-speaking world.

Mincemeat is a mixture of chopped dried fruit, distilled spirits and spices, and often beef suet, usually used as a pie or pastry filling. Mincemeat formerly contained meat, notably beef or venison. Many modern recipes replace the suet with vegetable shortening.

Mincemeat

Mince pie / Main ingredient

Mincemeat is a combination of chopped dried fruits, spices, sugar, nuts, distilled spirits, a fat of some type and sometimes meat. The name is a carryover from 15th century England when mincemeat did indeed have meat in the mix; in fact, the whole point of mincemeat was to preserve meat with sugar and alcohol.

Mincemeat isn't difficult to make, but it has a lot of ingredients, which can make it expensive to produce in small batches, and it requires at least a day's advance planning to let the ingredients sit.

Traditions, folklore and superstitions

Stirring the mincemeat was quite an event, and English tradition dictates that it should only be stirred clockwise. Stirring the mincemeat anti-clockwise would lead to bad luck and poor fortune in the coming 12 months.

The mince pie was originally filled with meat but it's believed that it wasn't until the late Victorian period and the early 20th century that mince pies shifted to a pie made from fruit fillings. Is it still illegal to eat mince pies on Christmas day?

The history of how mince pie originated is varied and no one can pinpoint its exact source. Some historians date it back to the birth of Christ, 12th-century crusades or King Henry V.

Why is it called 420 pies? ›

The brand's name is a reference to the traditional English nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence, which includes the lyric "Four and twenty blackbirds / Baked in a pie". Some early logos alluded to this, with 24 blackbirds escaping from a pie and taking flight, although the current logo features only text.

Suet is saturated fat that is used in many traditional British recipes, such as steamed puddings, pastry, and sweet mincemeat. Meat suet adds a dark and rich flavoring to dishes like meat pies, while vegetarian suet is used for lighter foods.

Ground beef, minced beef or beef mince is beef that has been finely chopped with a knife, meat grinder (American English), mincer or mincing machine (British English). It is used in many recipes including hamburgers, bolognese sauce, meatloaf, meatballs, and kofta.

Mincemeat pie is a dish that isn't very common in the American kitchen, which can lead to some confusion for cooks, even those on the Allrecipes staff.

British call it “minced beef”, Americans call it “ground beef”. Both mean the same thing, i.e. the beef is put into a machine that minces/grinds it into very small pieces that can be “molded” to a desired shape.

Ingredients: Water, Corn Syrup, Raisins, Dried Apples, Molasses, Corn Starch Modified, Distilled Vinegar, Dried Orange And Lemon Peel, Salt, Spices, Beef, Fruit Pectin, Natural Flavor.

Markham's recipe called for an entire leg of mutton and three pounds of suet which were mixed with salt, cloves, mace, currants, raisins, prunes, dates, and orange peel, a list of ingredients that, save for the meat, which is remarkably like that used today.

Ingredients: sugar, apples (26%), vine fruits (26%) (sultanas, raisins, currants), candied mixed peel (4%) (glucose-fructose syrup, orange peel, sugar, lemon peel, citric acid), vegetable suet (palm oil, sunflower oil, rice flour), treacle, acidity regulators (acetic acid, citric acid), mixed spices, citric acid, ...

Not only is mince an incredibly versatile meat, it is also packed full of nutrients that can help support good health and wellbeing. With mince, you don't need to eat a lot of it to get the nutritional goodness.