A secret recipe created by a cordon bleu cook in Lancashire is set to become a best seller this Christmas.
Julie Henderson from Southport originally created her jars of homemade mincemeat to sell at a local Christmas fair three years ago.
The fruit-packed mincemeat was a sell out so Julie began making jars to give to family and friends at Xmas time.
When relatives started placing more and more orders, Julie realised she had created something special and took her range of traditional range of mincemeat to a Dragon’s Den-style event organised by Booths buyers looking for new and innovative new products.
Julie’s recipes passed the taste test with flying colours and two of her delicious ‘Kensington Mincemeats’ will now be sold in selected Booths stores. These are ‘Cherry and Almond’ and ‘Cranberry and Date’, priced at £2.59 per 200g jar.
Booths buyer Leigh Anne Carr says: “We knew Julie had created something special when we tasted her range of fillings. They’re unlike anything on the market and what’s great is that Julie makes them all by hand in her own kitchen.
“Booths always goes out of its way to support small artisan producers and we’ve worked with Julie to develop her recipes into a proper brand that we know customers will love.”
Each of the mincemeats is filled with a mix of dried fruits and spices to give them mouthfuls of flavour.
Unusually the mincemeat is raw so that it is only cooked once when you bake in the oven. This gives it a freshness and flavour all of its own.
Julie says: “It was a friend of mine who suggested I go along to Booths – I never imagined my mincemeat would be sold in their stores! It’s been such a great learning experience working with Booths.
“All of the fillings are still handmade, hand jarred and hand labelled by me in my kitchen. You can tell because the odd label may be a little wonky!”