What food do you think of when you think of Christmas?? For me there are many as food was always a huge part of Christmas for us growing up. Mum would always be in the kitchen making all the trimings and when I got old enough to help out it became our thing to do the Christmas baking the day before Christmas.
One of the things Mum would always make was fruit mince pies, they were something I didn’t really like until only a few years ago. Probably because I didn’t like mince and fruit mince sounded disgusting to me at the time. A few years wiser I decided to give fruit mince pies a try and discovered that they are actually delicious sweet morsels!
I know the traditional fruit mince pies you purchase from the supermarket and the likes can keep for a blimmen long time which means they are full of preservatives which I’m not so keen on so I thought it would be nice to try my hand at making some from scratch, including the fruit mince!
Today I have my delicious festive fruit mince recipe for you all. It’s super easy to make and contains no added refined sugars. While it is high in sugar this is due to all the fruit in the mixture which can’t really be helped given it is a FRUIT mince recipe! 
This festive fruit mince is super easy to make and doesn’t take all that much of your time. All you need to do is chop up the apples, zest the orange and place the rest of the ingredients into a saucepan to simmer for a long time and just check it occasionally to ensure it isn’t sticking to the bottom of the pot.
This festive fruit mince can be used to turn into fruit mince pies, eaten just as it is (I promise it tastes a heck of a lot better than it looks – it is so hard to photograph this fruit mince!), or even eaten with some custard or yoghurt as a nice light dessert.
- 2 Large Apples (I used Pacific Rose)
- 300g Saltanas (or Raisins)
- 100g Cranberries
- 2 Oranges
- 1 Tin Apple Puree (no added sugar)
- 500ml Water
- 1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
- 1/2 Teaspoon Nutmeg
- 1/2 Teaspoon Ground Ginger
- 1/2 Teaspoon Allspice
- 3/4 Teaspoon Vanilla Paste
- Cut up the apples (skin on) into small cubes
- Add the apples, saltanas cranberries, spices, vanilla paste, apple puree and water to a large saucepan.
- Zest your oranges into the saucepan and then squeeze the juice from the oranges into the saucepan (ensure you don’t get any seeds in the mix)
- Simmer everything on the stove on low (stir occasionally) until 95% of the liquid has dissolved. This could take 30-40minutes depending in your heat.
- Let the mix cool and store in the fridge.
Keep an eye out for my post next week where I will show you how to make yummy gluten free fruit mince pies with this mix!