Mincemeat Streusel Slice

Sometimes the world of food can be a tad overwhelming. I decided to make mincemeat slice (half the battle – I’m the most indecisive person), had a cautious Google and was met with 795,000 results. For mincemeat slice?! So I ended up making two versions from two baking legends, Mary Berry and Rachel Allen, and doing a mini comparison. Sometimes indecisiveness can be a good thing – double the baking! The other 794,998 results will just have to wait until next year… The recipes differed slightly: Rachel Allen has a more classic approach of dividing one shortbread mixture in half to create two layers surrounding the mincemeat, whilst Mary Berry’s recipe has a very thin pastry layer as the base and a grated streusel topping. Both make a big trayful so we had plenty to compare! I added the zest of an orange to the shortbread in Rachel’s recipe which we all liked as we always have orange pastry in our mince pies at Christmas, and so this was notably missed in the plain pastry in Mary’s version. Also, Mary uses semolina in the streusel topping to add crunch, but none of us were really a fan of the gritty texture that this creates. However, one thing I preferred about Mary’s version was that the thinner base makes room for a thicker layer of mincemeat – useful for when you’re trying to use up Christmas surplus, a bit less heavy and also extra tasty! Mary’s also turned out prettier as the streusel melts into a fairly even top layer – all the photos in this post are her version. In the end we were torn – my parents preferred Rachel Allen’s version whilst I remain a loyal Mary Berry fan. The best result would probably be a combo of both: a bit less semolina in the struesel, a bit of orange to boost flavour and you’d have a winner! Maybe I’ll just have to make a 3rd batch to test this out… You can find the Mary Berry recipe here and Rachel’s version here (confusingly on Nigella’s website…) so you can decide which recipe sounds best to you. Enjoy!