Festive mincemeat

Well, Christmas is 30-odd days away, and although we made our Christmas cake three or four weeks ago (on Halloween, actually), I thought today we'd make some mincemeat (sugar free, of course) for mince pies, to go with ice cream, over bananas, etc :) Now, my mom makes lovely mincemeat so after a bit of a pep talk I have made it roughly to her method but kind of made the recipe up as we went along. I'm not even going to try and work out the ProPoints for this, because, well. In reality you'd take what, a generous spoonful? It's not going to kill you. So. In the spirit of "writing everything down so I don't forget it", here is what I put in this year's batch; I'm sure it'll get fiddled with for next year.

500g sultanas
500g raisins
1 small carton mixed peel (about 200g)
1 small carton glace cherries (about 200g), rinsed well and quartered
375g soft dates, chopped (1 pack)
375g dried figs, chopped (1 pack)
6 tbsp brandy
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 scant tsp nutmeg
grated zest of 1 orange
grated zest of 1 lemon

This needs to be left overnight for the brandy to penetrate the fruit.

Next morning, the dried fruit mix is mixed with apple sauce, which is homemade; just cook down sliced and peeled Bramleys with a couple of tbsp PerfectSweet, and allow to cool. When everything's ready, combine the dried fruit mix with the apple, a bit at a time, until you get the consistency you want, and then put it into sterilised jars/tupperware etc.

Here's a (slightly blurry, taken with my Blackberry) shot of the finished product!!