For some families, the arrival of the holiday season is heralded by houses made out of gingerbread, or dainty disks of iced and sugared cookie dough.
For others, it wouldn’t seem complete without a hard-sauced plum pudding or airy pannetone concluding their festive meal.
In my family, the occasion was always marked by the receipt of a jar of mincemeat lovingly prepared by Mamere (my grandmother). From as far back as I can recall, these care packages were sent across Canada to all of her 12 children, affording them a tiny taste of home no matter where their celebrations might be. Every year we longingly looked forward to the day that package would come, and then greedily consumed the pie in record time once it had been prepared. Mamere has since retired, but during the past few years I’ve taken the importance of upholding this tradition to heart.
Even though I now produce it for my kith and kin, it’s been a very long time since I’ve felt the urge to enjoy any myself.
Mincemeat (for the uninitiated) is a melange of dried and candied fruit (think raisins, currants and mixed peel to start, all of which I’m not keen on) stewed to a thick and syrupy consistency, then baked into seasonal edibles like pies and tarts. Today most of what is available is vegetarian, but traditionally it included suet (the fat from around beef kidneys). My family’s version is uber-traditional and includes not only suet but actual ground beef, partially owing to my decline in desire over the years, I’m sure. "Meat + fruit = dessert" is at best a questionable equation for most folks, it seems.
Preparing mincemeat has become a dying art, one that most people aren’t even aware of anymore. While researching this story I reached out to the internet for recommendations and was met with some peculiar suggestions. One person waxed poetically about a brand of pie found in a well-known supermarket chain, while another declared a commercial jarred brand on grocery store shelves to be exactly what I was after.
They were both wrong.
I didn’t want a soulless glop chockful of preservatives or things I can’t spell.
What I wanted to find were bakeries that were taking the same time and care to make their mincemeat tarts as my family does with ours. The goal became to find the culinary torchbearers of this almost forgotten treat, as it were.
Once I started asking, I was astonished by the number of bakeries around town that still produced these festive wares. Though not available for sampling or purchase at the time of writing, I found that Wanda’s Pie In The Sky (287 Augusta Avenue), Mabel’s Bakery (332 Roncesvalles Avenue), The Healthy Butcher (565 Queen Street West) and Dessert Lady Cafe (20 Cumberland Street) would all have them in stock or for order closer to the holiday season.
Luckily, I was able to obtain 5 samples from several other bakeries, for which I’ve compiled my tasting notes.
The first stop I made was at Dufflet Pastries (787 Queen Street West) where the tarts were 1.5” ($1.35) and 3” ($2.75) respectively, with a flaky, crumbly, buttery crust. I found the blend of apples, lemons, oranges, raisins and apricots wonderfully balanced between the sweet, tart and spicy elements, producing a tart with the elusive taste of Christmas. Though both sizes were delicious, I much preferred the larger one because it had a better ratio of filling to crust than the smaller version, which was almost all crust by comparison. Nevertheless, it’s hard to go wrong with any baked offering from Dufflet, and I would certainly return for these again.
Next I made haste to Daniel et Daniel (248 Carlton Street) in the hopes of securing one of their mini ($1.70) or individual ($4.65) tarts, but upon arrival all they had was a medium (8 inch). Quite possibly the strangest variation of mincemeat I laid hands on, their version was strewn with a powdery crumb topping that until tasting I’d mistaken for a dusting of icing sugar. The filling was sticky, treacly and very chunky, with pockets of whole raisins and currants interspersed throughout. It did exhibit the requisite tang of proper mincemeat, as well as a satisfyingly firm and crisp tart shell, but with the topping, it was a little too sweet for my liking, and I didn’t care for the aftertaste it left in my mouth, either. I’d only recommend it to those who are particularly fond of raisins (which I am not) or a curious connoisseur.
My third destination was to see Stephanie Pick at The Queen Of Tarts (283 Roncesvalles Avenue) where I picked up the prettiest tart ($4.75) of the bunch. Her glossy snowflake bedecked tart combined the usual suspects (raisins, currants, mixed peel) with cranberries, dried apricots, apples, pears, citrus, rum, marsala and more. One of the keys to successful mincemeat is allowing the flavours an adequate amount of time to meld, and this tart definitely evidenced that care. The filling was rustically chopped without being unpleasantly chunky, and the glaze (likely apricot) added a welcome sweetness to counter the puckeriness of the mince. The crust was so intensely buttery that it became the most addictive one to sample, disappearing much too quickly for my liking. A very solid tart that I’d welcome eating again… soon!
Halfway across town, I found myself at Brick Street Bakery (55 Mill Street) purchasing the most adorable tart (1.5”) I’d found ($2.25). It was minuscule, with a double crust that hid the filling entirely, and had me worried that I’d received a tiny tortiere instead of a mince pie. After one bite (though there was hardly much more to it than that) I found that it was mince with a very heavy hand on the citrus and whole fruit. The double crust was overkill on a tart so small, and completely threw off the proportion of pastry to filling. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t suggest bothering with this unless you really like citrus or crust more than pie.
Lastly, I went back across town to see Kyla Eaglesham of Madeleine’s Cherry Pie And Ice Cream (1087 Bathurst Street) to receive the most fancifully ornate tart. These star-shaped specimens ($2.25) with holly berry garnish were the full monty/real deal with a lard-laden crust and a suet-enriched filling (though they will make lard-free pastry on request). The caramel hue of the pork fat-based crust made all the other tart shells look anaemic by comparison. And despite arguments to the contrary, there really is no substitute for such a crust; at once meltingly flaky and a rich burnished brown. While the filling was smooth, it was less assertively spiced than the other tarts I sampled, but it perfectly offset the luxuriant shell. This tart would make a great entry point for those interested in dipping a toe into the world of mincemeat because it is mild enough to win over naysayers, yet still holds true to what mincemeat is all about.
I consumed more mincemeat in 3 days than I had in the previous 10 years while compiling this story. Surprisingly, instead of dulling my appetite for it, the comparison reignited my love affair with this oft-maligned dessert. In essence, these 5 Toronto bakeries have given me the best Christmas present of all; a chance to reconnect to one of my family’s own cherished traditions.
So, this holiday season, why not trade in your pumpkin pie, sugar cookies, plum pudding or fruitcake for a tantalizing slice of mincemeat? You never know, you just might like it after all.
Porsha Perreault is a freelance writer, voracious eater, amateur charcutier, and chocolate enthusiast living in Little Italy. A copy of her family's cherished mincemeat recipe can be found at Foodie and the Everyman.
