Mincemeat substitutes

A fifteen-minute stovetop version that skips the traditional month in the jar.

Best for

mince pies, mincemeat tarts and slices, strudel and bakewell fillings, stirring into porridge or a crumble

2 cups mixed dried fruit (raisins, sultanas, currants, chopped candied peel if you have it), 1 coarsely grated apple, 1/3 cup dark brown sugar, 2 tbsp butter, zest and juice of 1 orange and 1 lemon, 2 tsp mixed spice, a pinch of salt. Simmer gently 10 to 15 minutes until the liquid is syrupy and the fruit is plump, then take it off the heat and stir in 2 tbsp brandy or dark rum. Cool completely before filling pastry or the fat melts out of the crust. It tastes marginally brighter and less deep than a matured jar and nobody at the table will notice.

The same quick method built from chopped dates, prunes, figs, dried apricots or dried cranberries instead of the classic vine fruit.

Best for

mince pies, mincemeat slices, using up the back of the cupboard

This works properly, and the fruit you pick genuinely changes the pie. Dates and prunes make it darker, stickier and more treacly, closer to a sticky toffee flavour. Dried apricots and cranberries make it brighter, tarter and lighter in colour, which some people prefer. Keep the grated apple whichever fruit you use, because the apple is what stops mincemeat being cloying, and keep the citrus zest, because that lift is the difference between mincemeat and sweetened dried fruit.

The five-minute cold assembly, using a jam with body rather than a soft-set one.

Best for

mince pies in a hurry, thumbprint biscuits, swirling into a bread and butter pudding

Fig, plum, damson and apricot jam are the best bases because they have real fruit structure. Add a scrape of orange zest and a squeeze of lemon and it gets close. The honest downside is that jam has more free sugar and less fat than mincemeat, so it runs hotter and looser in the oven: fill each pie with a scant teaspoon, seal the lids well, and expect a bit more bubbling out. It will taste sweeter and less spiced than the real thing.

Two grated apples simmered with 1.5 cups dried fruit, ¼ cup sugar, mixed spice and a splash of orange juice for about ten minutes.

Best for

mince pies for children, alcohol-free baking, crumbles and turnovers

Genuinely pleasant, and completely different in character. Without butter or suet and without brandy it is lighter, fruitier and more obviously apple-led, so the pies taste like small apple pies rather than mince pies. It is also wetter, so drain it in a sieve for a few minutes before filling pastry. Push the mixed spice up to a heaped teaspoon per batch, because the spice is now carrying the whole festive flavour on its own.

Leftover steamed pudding, Christmas cake or a dense fruitcake, broken up and slackened.

Best for

mince pies, mincemeat slices, using up leftovers after Christmas

The same fruit, spice and booze family, so the flavour lands almost exactly right. The difference is that it is already baked, so it is cakey rather than jammy: the pies come out denser and more bready, and the filling does not glisten the way mincemeat does. Loosen it well or it will be dry. This is one of the best uses for leftover pudding there is.

The least-good option, worth naming because plenty of people end up here.

Best for

an emergency batch of pies, jam tarts you are prepared to call jam tarts

A pastry case filled with plain jam is a jam tart. It is sweet, one-note and missing every aromatic thing mincemeat contributes, and it will leak more than a proper filling. That said, stirring ¼ teaspoon of mixed spice and a scrape of orange zest into every half cup of jam takes ten seconds and closes a genuinely surprising amount of the gap. Do that much at minimum.