{"id":96774,"date":"2018-01-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T01:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/origin-www.tasteofhome.com\/recipes\/walnut-mincemeat-pie\/"},"modified":"2024-01-29T12:01:57","modified_gmt":"2024-01-29T18:01:57","slug":"walnut-mincemeat-pie","status":"publish","type":"recipe","link":"https:\/\/www.tasteofhome.com\/recipes\/walnut-mincemeat-pie\/","title":{"rendered":"Mincemeat Pie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone proud of their British heritage loves mincemeat pie. This spiced dessert is a tradition to make around the holidays. In fact, some English families leave out a slice of mincemeat pie for Father Christmas instead of cookies and milk. It’s supposedly good luck to eat mincemeat pie on each of the 12 days of Christmas. But many people have never heard of it or are hesitant to try it, based on the name.<\/p>\n

What is mincemeat pie?<\/h2>\n

Mincemeat or mince pie is a British delicacy<\/a> for the holiday season that traces its origins back to the kings and queens of the Middle Ages, or even earlier. The recipe was developed as a way to preserve meat, such as mutton or beef, without salt or smoke. The “minced” meat, or suet, was mixed with dried fruits and spices like cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, then baked into a pie.<\/p>\n

Reader Connie Hammond of Fort Madison, Iowa, recalls helping her grandma, mom and two of her grandma’s sisters prepare it. “Mincemeat is a wonderful pie filling with cooked ground beef, chopped apples and raisins, plus spices and juices for flavor. It took all day to make,” she writes. “We ground the beef finely with a hand-crank grinder and cooked it, peeled and chopped Jonathan apples, and then mixed and simmered the stuff to perfection.”<\/p>\n

Mincemeat has evolved to reflect changing tastes, and it’s now often meatless\u2014simply a delicious blend of fruits and spices.<\/p>\n

Mincemeat Pie Ingredients<\/h2>\n