Mincemeat and Marzipan Tea Loaf

This is a great cake recipe for using Christmas leftovers, but also good enough to buy mincemeat and marzipan especially to make it (as long as you could find a use for the leftovers!). I was using brandy marzipan, brought from the 'reduced to clear' shelf, and a standard nut-free mincemeat.

The recipe comes from Good Food, although it isn't on their website. I originally found it in one of their cookbooks - 101 Cakes and Bakes - and there are plenty of blogs which have given the recipe. I wrote out the recipe when I first used it, six years ago (here's the link!) so there's not much point is writing it again. This time I needed to add a couple of tablespoons of milk to loosen the cake batter - it was a very stiff mincemeat - and it needed a few minutes longer baking time as a result. I also increased the marzipan from 85g to 110g, as I suggested in the linked post, although I kept the pieces small as I read on one blog that large pieces of marzipan had sunk to the bottom of the cake during baking. This time I sprinkled a handful of flaked almonds on top before baking.

The mincemeat I used was quite basic, so the almond flavour of the marzipan was the strongest element of the cake. I think adding a little more spice, or even the grated zest of an orange, would have been an improvement, but it's difficult to know in advance how the mincemeat will influence the flavour of the cake. My husband thought it tasted like Stollen, so he really liked it!