Something that’s fun about living in London is learning some of the cultural differences. It’s been so interesting discovering what is normal and taken for granted in one country, but is totally unknown in the other. For example, Christmas dinner here seems similar to American Thanksgiving with turkey, cranberry sauce, and stuffing. But, it also includes sausage wrapped in bacon, bread sauce, and a Christmas pudding (which is a fruitcake type thing) that gets lit on fire and everyone has a bite even though they don’t like it. There are also Christmas crackers which are cardboard tubes you pull open, they make a cracking noise, and inside is a paper crown (which you wear), a bad joke, and a toy or candy or something. (Side note, on Tuesday at a work party I got to pull my first cracker. It was really touching how excited my coworkers were that I was getting to try it for the first time. Inside my cracker was a purple crown, a joke about a hot dog, and an eye patch)
But most importantly,for Christmas instead of cookies and milk Santa gets mince pie and sherry in Britain. When I first heard of this, I was shocked.
“Santa gets a meat pie?” I asked my coworkers incredulously. Because here “mince” usually refers to ground beef. Also, all that sherry the Brits are sending Santa off to do some drunk driving! Someone pointed out that the reindeers do must of the work and Rudolph guides the sleigh so it’s fine. And maybe by the time Santa gets to the US, he’s feeling tipsy and more generous with the present giving. They might be doing us a favor.
Anyway, I think they looked at me like I was an idiot. Obviously it wasn’t meat. In my defense, why shouldn’t it be meat? There are all kinds of meat pies here! Nevertheless, it’s not a meat pie. One of my coworkers generously gave me a small pie from her lunch to try. Inside the pie is dried fruits like raisins, and golden raisins (called sultanas here), some mixed peel, and all of it soaked in spices and brandy. I found it pretty nice and very flavorful.
I thought about making my own mince pie, to get into the holiday spirit. I even looked up how to make the mincemeat from scratch but then I got totally intimidated. You need to do a bit of canning and sterilizing because the mincemeat needs to soak for a “fortnight” in order to get the richest flavor. Luckily, it’s super easy to buy pre-made mincemeat from the super market. I’m not sure if mincemeat is available to buy in the US, so I’m sorry if this recipe isn’t very accessible. Anyway I bought myself a jar – and I’m told any left over will keep forever and is also tasty eaten straight from the jar with a spoon.
I was curious, but on the fence about making a mince pie. If I brought them in to work, would it seem like I was trying too hard to fit in? Was I over thinking about pie? Yes, always. But then I came across a beautiful photo from Supergolden Bakes for mincemeat cupcakes. I knew that’s what I had to make. Mincemeat pie is British, cupcakes are sort of considered American, and this recipe would be a beautiful blending of the two cultures.
These cupcakes have a lot of bold flavors like orange, cinnamon, cloves, and all the brandy and spices in the mincemeat. For me, the orange flavor was the strongest, it was unexpected but bright, and refreshing. I really liked that. Overall, these cakes have a really warm Christmas flavor, which can be a bit different for a cupcake. I usually expect cupcakes to be light and very sweet, but this has more personality and complexity than most. I iced them with regular vanilla icing from the store, which adds a nice creamy balance. Feel free to make your own icing, but after my gingerbread house saga I was tired of making icing.
What kinds of things do you bake for the holidays? I usually stick to the basics of sugar cookies and gingerbread men, but I think this could be added to the rotation in the future. This recipe comes from Supergolden Bakes. Confusingly, it calls for adding lemon juice to the milk. This curdles the milk, which weirded me out, but the recipes tasted nice in the end, so don’t worry too much.
Messy level: Two spoons. This is a very straightforward cake recipe and the dough is slightly thick so it doesn’t ooze everywhere when you pour it.
- 165g/ about 1.5 cups all purpose flour
- 165g/ about ¾ cup brown sugar
- 40g/ about a heaping ⅓ cup ground almonds
- ½ tbsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
- 100g/ about 7 tbsp unsalted butter, cold and cubed
- 2 large eggs
- zest of 1 orange
- 100ml/3.5 fl oz whole milk mixed with 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 5 tbsp mincemeat
- 1 container vanilla frosting
- Preheat the oven to 350/180°. Line a muffin tin with cupcake cases, or butter the tin generously.
- Prep tip - if you haven't already cubed the butter, do it now! Cube it, pop it back into the fridge until you need it.
- In a large bowl mix the flour, brown sugar, ground almonds, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves.
- Now it's time to cut the butter into the flour mixture. You can do this one of three ways: in a food processor, with a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, or with a dough cutter or two knives. Whatever way you choose, cut the butter into the flour until it resembles sand.
- Add the eggs to the flour and mix them in. The dough will be thick and sort of odd looking.
- Now mix in the milk and zest. Stir until you have an evenly mixed batter.
- Gently fold in the mincemeat.
- Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake cases filling ¾ of the way.
- Bake for 20-23 minutes.
- Let cool completely then frost.
