Sweet Mincemeat Traybake

The clocks went back in the middle of the night, and the weather apparently got the memo that we are now officially in Winter time. I haven’t driven in rain like that for a while, so I was delighted to get home in one piece. The addition of the delicious scent of a wood fire on the Ormeau road only enhanced the feeling that I needed to bake something ‘seasonal’, and bake it now.

Enter my latest hero of the internet, @Irish_Mammy_Cooks  – Give her a follow on Instagram, she’s lovely! –  who had exactly what I was looking for – a traybake which used up some of last year’s Christmas Mincemeat.

My last year’s Mincemeat is perfectly good mind you, liberally doused in brandy, and in a sealed, sterilised jar; I’ll be using it for mince pies soon.. but I wanted something Christmassy today, and Mammy delivered!

Naturally, I tried it out before I passed it on – it is, after all, a recipe on the Internet, and we all know what they’re like 😉

So, let’s go, that evening is fair drawing in…

EQUIPMENT:

• A large mixing bowl
• A spatula or wooden spoon
•  A 9 x 9 inch or 23 x23 cms square baking tin. Lined.
• a weighing scales

INGREDIENTS: I scribbled these down while Mammy’s video was running..

• 200g Self-raising flour
• 150g caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon (5g) of mixed spice
• 3 eggs
• 150g of very, very soft butter – see NOTES.
• 250g jar of mincemeat. And yes, of course ready-made is fine.

OPTIONAL ICING:

• 2-3 tablespoons of Icing sugar, sifted
• Lemon or orange juice, added as required to make a thinnish icing .

METHOD: Honestly couldn’t be easier..

• Lightly butter and line the baking tray. It doesn’t need to be neat, see my pictures!
• Switch the oven on to 160ºC Fan
• Put the flour, sugar and spice into the bowl and mix together
• Add the eggs, and mix in – the batter will be a bit stiff at this stage.

• Add the softened butter and mix in thoroughly.
• Add the Mincemeat.
• Give it all one final good mix, the batter will be a lot easier to use now.
• Pour the whole lot into the baking tin, spread it into the corners, and make sure it’s fairly evenly spread.

• Bake on the middle shelf for 30 minutes, until the sponge bounces back when you lightly press it. Mine took the full 30 minutes today

• Remove the  cake from the tin, but leave the lining paper on, and allow to cool fully.
• Ice it if you feel like it. (it doesn’t really need it, and of course it will keep better un-iced)
• Once the icing is set, cut into squares or fingers. Keep in an air-tight tin, in a cool spot.

NOTES:

• Very soft butter – If, like me, you never remember to take the butter out so that it will come to room temperature all by itself, here’s what I did – I weighed the 150g of butter into a heat proof bowl, then I popped it into the pre-heating oven for about 3 minutes – put the timer on, you won’t remember – and it had softened beautifully. It should be soft, not warm, and certainly not melted.
• I made this cake by hand, because that’s what Irish Mammy did, and it worked fine for me, but of course you can use your mixer if you’d prefer.
• I didn’t line the cake tin too tidily – I’m usually a bit precious about that, but the cake batter will straighten it out for you.