Mincemeat Cake with Pecans

This recipe came from my high school cooking class. Over the years I have tweaked it and retweaked it so many times that I have changed it to a mincemeat cake with either pecans or walnuts. It tastes similar to fruitcake, but without the candied fruit. When the kids ask me to make a fruitcake, this is the one they are referring to. At different times I have added coconut, candied fruitcake fruit, and chopped dried fruit. It has a bit of a fruitcake flavor. If you add extra ingredients and it causes the batter to be too moist, more flour can be added. Up to 1/2 cup flour can be added without changing other ingredients. If you add more flour than that, add 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder.

• Preparation Time: 15 mins
• Cooking Time: 1 hr 10 mins
• Total Time: 1 hr 25 mins
• Calories: 641 Calories

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 ½ cups white sugar
• 3 eggs
• ½ cup applesauce
• 1 ½ cups raisins
• 1 cup shredded carrots
• ½ cup canola oil
• cooking spray
• 1 cup chopped pecans, or more to taste
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, or to taste
• 2 teaspoons ground allspice, or to taste
• 4 cups prepared mincemeat pie filling
• 2 cups whole maraschino cherries, drained (reserve juice)
• 1 fluid ounce brandy flavoring

Recipe Instructions

Step 1

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Spray an angel food tube pan or 2 5x9-inch bread pans with nonstick cooking spray.

Step 2

Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, allspice, and salt together into a bowl.

Step 3

Stir the mincemeat pie filling, sugar, eggs, raisins, maraschino cherries, carrots, pecans, applesauce, canola oil, brandy flavoring, and vanilla extract together in a large mixing bowl. Mix about 1/3 of the flour mixture into the mincemeat mixture at a time, stirring 3 or 4 times after each addition. If the batter seems dry, stir in reserved maraschino juice, about 1 tablespoon at a time, until batter is desired consistency. Spoon the batter into prepared cake pan.

Step 4

Bake in the preheated oven until cake is lightly golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 1 hour and 10 minutes.