Mincemeat Tarts with Hard Sauce – Low Carb and Gluten-Free

Nothing says Christmas like mincemeat tarts with hard sauce. Low carb mincemeat is nestled in gluten-free almond flour pastry for a holiday treat that tastes every bit as good as the original.

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Nothing says Christmas like mincemeat tarts with hard sauce. Low carb mincemeat is nestled in gluten-free almond flour pastry for a holiday treat that tastes every bit as good as the original.

Some things just deserve to jump to the head to the head of the line. They deserve special treatment, they deserve to push every thing else out of their way while they take up their rightful place in the limelight. It is even true of recipes. I often have a backlog of recipes waiting in the wings, and usually I publish them in the order in which they were made. But sometimes one is so good or so exciting or just simply fits the circumstances so perfectly, I find myself pushing the rest off so I can get that one out there into the world. This is the tale of one such recipe. (And if that doesn’t sound like the start of a Dickens novel, you can call me Ebeneezer Scrooge).

Mincemeat tarts are something I grew up eating around the holidays, and I’ve always loved them, especially with a nice dollop of boozy hard sauce melting on top. Our version of homemade mincemeat tarts consisted of ready-made pie dough and sugary mincemeat from a jar, baked until golden brown and bubbling. Despite their lack of authenticity, I loved the sweet, citrusy, spice-laden tarts and always went back for a second helping. I’ve been mulling over how to get that same flavour in a healthier low carb package for 2 years now, and this year I decided to give it a go.

These days, mincemeat doesn’t actually contain any real meat, and consists mainly of dried fruit and apples cooked with sugar, spices and some brandy. Traditionally, however, it is made with beef suet (raw beef fat) and that seemed like my biggest obstacle. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of finding beef suet in my area. I even tried a local British Foods store, a tiny little hole in the wall in an awful strip mall on a very busy thoroughfare. No luck there, although the proprietor indicated that they’d be getting some vegetable suet in before the holidays. Not in time for me to attempt low carb mincemeat, it would seem.

But it struck me that as I was already straying far off the traditional path for mince, I might as well go whole hog and use a completely different source of fat. I decided that a good quality extra virgin coconut oil, like Kelapo, would have just the right consistency. For the rest of the filling, I swapped out the majority of the raisins with sugar-free dried cranberries and chopped walnuts. I did keep one small apple in there, although a reader suggested that chayote squash might make an even lower carb substitute. I skipped the candied peel and just added more lemon and orange zest to get that same sharp citrus flavour. And then I cooked it all with some Swerve Sweetener and added a little brandy at the end. The end result was right on the money – I knew it the moment my husband declared that the house smelled like A Christmas Carol.

I’ve also been working on making my almond flour pastry a little sturdier and easier to work with, without losing tenderness or adding more carbs. This has definitely taken some experimentation, but I’ve found that the addition of a little arrowroot starch and some coconut flour seemed to work. It’s still fragile and can tear and crack a little when being shaped. But it patches back together so nicely that the final product looks great.

Put these two things together and you’ve got yourself some delicious low carb, gluten-free mincemeat tarts. I am extremely proud of these, I will admit. In terms of ingredients, they are wildly un-traditional. And yet I defy anyone to tell the difference. I know my mincemeat tarts and these are the real, albeit unconventional, thing.

5 from 12 votes

Mincemeat Tarts with Hard Sauce – Low Carb and Gluten-Free

Servings: 24 tarts

Prep Time 1 hour hr

Cook Time 20 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr 20 minutes mins

Nothing says Christmas like mincemeat tarts with hard sauce. Low carb mincemeat is nestled in gluten-free almond flour pastry for a holiday treat that tastes every bit as good as the original.

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Ingredients

 

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Mincemeat:

• 1 cup Sugar-Free Dried Cranberries
• 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
• 1/2 cup Swerve Sweetener
• 1 small apple, finely chopped (or chopped chayote squash)
• 1/4 cup golden raisins, chopped
• 1/4 cup Kelapo coconut oil
• Zest of one lemon
• Zest of one orange
• 2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 tbsp water
• 2 tsp molasses, (optional, for colour and flavour)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 3 tbsp brandy

Crust:

• 1 1/4 cup Honeyville almond flour
• 2 tbsp Swerve Sweetener
• 2 tbsp Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Flour
• 2 tbsp arrowroot starch
• 2 tbsp Coconut flour
• 1 tsp xanthan gum
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 5 tbsp butter
• 2-4 tbsp ice water

Hard sauce:

• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup powdered Swerve Sweetener
• 1 tbsp dark rum

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Instructions

Mincemeat:

• Combine cranberries, walnuts, sweetener, apple, raisins, coconut oil, lemon zest, orange zest, lemon juice, water, molasses, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
• Bring to a simmer and cook 5 to 10 minutes or until sweetener is completely dissolved, stirring frequently. Remove and stir in brandy. Let cool completely.
• Transfer to a clean jar and store in the refrigerator. It may harden up a bit in the fridge but can be warmed gently in the microwave to soften.

Pastry Crust:

• Combine almond flour, gluten-free flour, sweetener, arrowroot starch, coconut flour, xanthan gum and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse to combine.
• Sprinkle butter over and pulse until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
• With processor running on low, add ice water 1 tbsp at a time until dough begins to clump together.
• Cover work surface with a large sheet of parchment paper and sprinkle with almond flour. Turn out dough and form into a disk. Sprinkle with additional almond flour and top with another piece of parchment, then carefully roll out in all directions to form a rough circle about 13 inches in diameter.
• Using a 2 ½ inch round cookie cutter, cut out as many circles as possible. Gently loosen circles of dough with an offset spatula and place into the cavities of a mini muffin pan, shaping to fit the cavities.
• Gather up scraps of dough and re-roll to cut out more circles, using almond flour as necessary. You should get about 24 small tartlets and still have a little dough leftover to cut out decorative shapes for the tops of your tarts.
• Prick the bottoms of the tarts several times with a fork or sharp and then freeze at least one hour.
• To make the tarts, preheat oven to 325F. Fill each tart shell with about 2 tsp of mincemeat (this will only use up about half of the mincemeat).
• Bake 18 to 22 minutes, or until filling is bubbly and tart edges are golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool in pan at least 20 minutes (they are very fragile when still warm - if you want to serve them hot, rewarm them out of the muffin pans gently in the oven).

Hard Sauce:

• Beat butter with powdered sweetener and rum until well combined and smooth. Refrigerate until firm. Dollop a little hard sauce on warm tarts to serve.

Notes

Mincemeat filling:
Makes about 2 cups (you only need one cup for 24 mini tarts). Per tablespoon (32 tablespoons in 2 cups): 39 Calories; 3g Fat (62.1% calories from fat); 1g Protein; 3g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 0mg Cholesterol; 1mg Sodium. Total NET CARBS per tablespoon = 2 g.

Mincemeat tarts:
Makes 24 tarts (uses only about half of the mincemeat). Per tart: 111 Calories; 9g Fat (74.1% calories from fat); 2g Protein; 5g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 12mg Cholesterol; 70mg Sodium. Total NET CARBS per tart = 3 g.

Nutrition

Serving: 1tart | Calories: 111kcal | Carbohydrates: 5g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 9g | Cholesterol: 12mg | Sodium: 70mg | Fiber: 2g

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