• Home
  • About
  • Projects
    • Medieval & Renaissance
    • 1720 -1790 – Rococo
    • 1790 – 1820 – Regency
    • 1820 – 1850 – Biedermeier
    • 1850 – 1870 – Crinoline
    • 1870 – 1890 – Bustle
    • 1890 – 1914 – Belle Epoque
    • Hair & Make up
  • Collaborations
  • Links
  • Contact
Logo
Logo
DIY

Eliza Actons superlative mincemeat – 1845

needleworking-history
No Comments
7. Dezember 2019
3 Mins read
49169189438_0703ff6477_o

It’s christmas time! My favourite season of the year. I love when it’s dark and cold and can stay in my PJs all day, drink tea and read new books.
And just think of all the christmas decorations in the city, the smell of cinnamon, cloves and freshly baked cookies and steaming hot tea! There is nothing more beautiful than this.

So this week I finally got my hands on suet which I will use to make 18th century pomade and since I don’t need all of it I decided to try to make a 19th century mincemeat to later make mince pies.
In austria we don’t have mince pies or anything similar. As far as I know, it was a very traditional food in england and later also in america.
Very early on mince pies had pretty much meat in it but when prices for candied peel and dried fruits went down in the 18th and 19th century the meat contents went down.
In traditional mince meat you still use suet, a kidney fat from cows.
You still can use meat in the mince meat but I decided to go with a recipe without meat but with fresh suet.

I chose to use a recipe from Eliza Acton. I found the recipe in Modern cookery in all its branches on page 357.

Take four large lemons, with their weight of golden pippins pared and cored, of jar-raisins, currants, candied citron and orange-rind, and the finest suet, and a fourth part more of pounded sugar.
Boil the lemons tender, chop them small, but be careful first to extract all the pips; add them to the other ingredients, after all have been prepared with great nicety, and mix the whole well with from three to four glasses of good brandy.
Apportion salt and spice by the preceding receipt.*
We think that the weight of one lemon, in meat, improves this mixture; or, in lieu of it, a small quantity of crushed macaroons added just before it is baked.

*nutmeg, mace, ginger or other spices like cloves or cinnamon. I studied a lot of recipes of the time and found all those spices.

I decided to convert the recipe to modern measurements and came up with the following:

  • 200 g lemons
  • 200 g apples (cored)
  • 200 g raisins
  • 200 g currants
  • 200 g candied citron and orange-rind
  • 200 g suet
  • 250 g sugar
  • 250 ml good brandy
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp mace
  • (1/4 tsp cloves)
  • (1/2 tsp cinnamon)

I decided to add cloves and cinnamon to the mix because they are my favourite spices for sweet goods and they are found in a lot of recipes of the time!

I started with the lemons. Make sure to buy untreated lemons because you want to use the peel too!
I put my lemons in a pot with two cups of water and boiled them for about 15 minutes and removed them from the water immediatley. In the meantime I cut up the apples, chopped the raisins very roughly and mixed all dry ingredients.
Not I chopped the lemons very fine but removed the seeds beforehand. I also added the liquid to the mix.

And them I came to my part I worried a lot about, because I never worked with it. The suet.
I got fresh suet from the butcher and started breaking it apart. I tried to get rid of all blood spots and also of most of the connective tissue. Then I chopped it very fine and added it to the mix.
I couldn’t take a picture of the chopped suet only because my hands were super greasy and I wanted to get the greasy part done. 😀

And now I came to the fun part: Brandy!
I used roughly 250 ml and added it to my bowl and started mixing it together.
It starts to get super juicy and it smells delicious. Now it was time to put it in a jar. I only had a glass container and put everything in, added a splash more brandy and closed it.

Now I have to wait for the mince meat to get good and suck up all the juices.
To be honest I’m a bit scared that the fat will go rancid but I hope that the sugar and brandy act as a preservative.

If you also want to make mince pies before christmas you should make the mince meat very very soon so that it has time to stand. I’d say it should stand at least 10 days.

Shares
Write Comment
Schreibe einen Kommentar Antworten abbrechen

Deine E-Mail-Adresse wird nicht veröffentlicht. Erforderliche Felder sind mit * markiert

Previous Post

18th century pocket hoops (Patterns of Fashion 5)

Next Post

Millinery course (masterclass for stage costumes)

You might also like
20230302_234745
1890 – 1914 – Belle Epoque DIY

The Making of Fortunys ‚Delphos‘ – Pleating

5 Mins read
28. Juli 2023

If you follow me on Instagram you already saw, that I finished my Delphos quite some time ago, but I just hadn’t found the time to write a blog post. I also redid my website and I’m currently preparing my new website which will be linked to my future web-shop, since I plan to start …

cinnamon loaf (6)
DIY

Cinnamon Loaf – Recipe from 1856

3 Mins read
5. Oktober 2019

Autumn is finally here and this also marks the beginning of my favourite months of the year! I love when it’s as cold, dark and rainy as it currrently is in Vienna. The city feels so mystical and when you wander around the first district in the rain you start to feel the spirits of …

fbt
1720 -1790 – Rococo DIY Hair & Make up

A try on 18th century hair

4 Mins read
6. Juni 2020

Today I’m back with a little picture series on how I tried out an 18th century hairstyle. First of all: Those pictures were taken pretty spontaneously so please excuse the background and my weird faces. First of all: Pomade and Powder. After many, many tries to make authentic 18th century pomade with leaf lard and …

Lifestyle Blog & Magazine WordPress Theme
Logo
Our site uses cookies. Learn more about our use of cookies: cookie policy
I accept use of cookies