California Mincemeat Recipe (2024)

By micheletobias

Obligatory Rambling About this Recipe

Last year, I wanted to try making mincemeat pies. I’m not entirely sure why. The only time I’d eaten these before was when my grandparents’ neighbor brought some to their Christmas parties when I was younger. Those were made with jarred filling. I don’t remember what they tasted like or even if I liked them. But whatever. Let’s blame the Great British Baking Show.

I looked at a bunch of recipes and realized I didn’t have some of the ingredients they called for, so like every home cook researching on the internet, I started substituting things I had on hand, which was fruit that grows well in a northern California backyard and a random collection of dried fruit that desperately needed to get used. This could have gone very wrong, but it was exactly the opposite. The pies were amazing. I made the recipe again from my notes and it came out just as good this year, so I though it was time to share. I did make a mistake this year and put in much more pomegranate juice than I did last year, but it came out fine. So if you have 2 cups, great. If you’ve got more because you misread the recipe and peeled way too many pomegranates, go ahead and add that in. It’s pretty forgiving. You’re gonna reduce it anyway.

What does it taste like? The filling is rich (thanks, butter!), sweet, and tangy. It’s a bit citrusy (is that a word?) and bright. It doesn’t taste like any of the individual ingredients. I hate raisins but you don’t taste them. If you really don’t like a particular dried fruit, just leave it out and add more of something else.

This recipe makes enough for many dozen muffin tin pies. Probably 6 dozen? About 6 cups of filling. Seriously, cut the recipe in half unless you have a lot of people who want to eat tiny pies. But they keep well, so maybe just make the whole thing.

Ingredients:

2-3 cups pomegranate juice

1 cup brown sugar

1.5 quarts (6 cups) of fruit:

• 4 Fuyu persimmons, diced, skin on
• Dried fruit, diced (raisins, craisins, apricots, prunes)

1 inch of fresh ginger finely diced or grated

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. ground cloves

Zest of 1 tangerine

Zest + juice of one lemon

1/2 stick butter

1/3 cup rum

Procedure:

1. In a medium sauce pan, simmer the pomegranate juice with the sugar to reduce it a little while you prepare the fruit.
2. Chop the big fruit to make even sized pieces.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients (except the rum) to the pan and simmer until thickened, stirring as needed to keep it from burning.
4. Cool the mixture.
5. Stir in the rum and refrigerate until needed. It’s better if it ages a bit in the fridge. I left mine a week or so.

Making Pies?

1. Make your favorite pie crust dough (or buy some… whatever… it really doesn’t matter). I like the double crust recipe in the New Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook (i.e. the Betty Crocker, even though it’s not by or from Better Crocker… it’s a long story) made with butter. You’ll need more than one batch to use all the filling.
2. Roll it out pretty thin.
3. Cut out circles big enough to fit in your muffing tins and place them in the cups. You’ll need to fiddle with them to get them to sit down inside the cups.
4. Add the filling. DO NOT OVERFILL. If you put too much, it will leak over the edges when it starts to bubble and the pies will glue themselves to the bottom of the tin. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
5. Top the pie with another pie crust cutout that that is about the same size at the top of your pies. I used a star that conveniently had the same diameter as my muffin tin openings, but any shape (or none at all) will do.
6. Bake them at 375° (?… whatever you normally bake your pies at) until they’re visibly brown and the filling is bubbly. When in doubt, go a little longer. You don’t want a soggy bottom.

About micheletobias

I lead two lives - one as an artist and the other as a scientist. More and more I'm finding my two worlds colliding, and it's not the disaster you might expect.View all posts by micheletobias