Mincemeat, can you use after bbe

Is dried fruit ok when past it’s best before date? I’ve got some in jars that I’ve had for ages but never wrote the best before date on them. Also some glacé cherries that are a year past their best before date. Was going to make some tea bread with them.

The glacé cherries should be fine. Just rinse them first to take the sticky sugar off them and rehydrate them.
I'm not sure about the dried fruit. It usually goes rock solid after too long.

MayBee70

Is dried fruit ok when past it’s best before date? I’ve got some in jars that I’ve had for ages but never wrote the best before date on them. Also some glacé cherries that are a year past their best before date. Was going to make some tea bread with them.

Oh, use it all, it’ll be fine.

Soak the dried fruit in a drop of brandy or similar, might help to plump it up!

If it is tea bread you are making , soak the fruit in tea... plumps up beautifully!

Dried fruit can be soaked overnight in brandy or cold tea and will come up fine Maybee although if it was years out of date, I’d probably throw it. Not sure about glacé cherries though, although Joseann suggests how to rehydrate them, but mine have never lasted long enough to need rehydrating, although sometimes my dried fruit dries out a bit. I bake most weekends and so my fruit gets used up quite quickly.

With the very old mincemeat, no I wouldn’t use that. I’d throw it away and buy new. Mr M makes the most delicious mince pies every Christmas. We don’t buy them because his are gorgeous (made with shop bought mincemeat) and he makes them every weekend from the end of November.

Annoyingly I’m out of brandy. I started buying it because I eat a lot of mushrooms and I read that adding brand to them when cooking enhances the flavour. Which it does. Unfortunately, although I don’t really drink much alcohol I am partial to having some brandy in warm milk at bedtime and I found myself drinking it far too much so I stopped buying it! I’d never bothered with best before dates until I had my weevil infestation and I’ve now gone completely the other way! What I did learn to do during the lockdowns was to write the bb date on tins and spices as soon as I buy them, although I still don’t bother with bb dates on tins and jars but it does mean that I rotate them. I am going to make sure my spices are fresh, though, and have bought lots of glass airtight spice jars to decant my spices into when I buy them. I found that I had a cupboard full of spices even though I only use a few of them.

About to go and start making my own mincemeat for this Christmas. I make my own because DGD & DDDiL have a nut allergies

One huge jar and it doesn't last out the 12 days of Christmas, we love mince pies in this family.

I always make enough mincemeat for two Christmases and I’m 69. #just saying

Yes wondering about using unopened mincemeat from fortnums but unsure as just had treatment for H.pilori.(unknowingly) son keeps nagging me NOT to eat stuff past their best.

I use mincemeat that' s up to a year out of date, I taste it first & if it's OK put a bit of extra brandy in. Products like mincemeat that are designed to store for months, it's more the quality deteriorating after the BB rather than a food hygiene worry I think.

I didn't put a use by date on my home-made mincemeat. It's probably 3 years old but, with the high sugar content and the alcohol it should be fine.
I won't inflict it on the family though, just DH and me if it seems ok.

MayBee70

Is dried fruit ok when past it’s best before date? I’ve got some in jars that I’ve had for ages but never wrote the best before date on them. Also some glacé cherries that are a year past their best before date. Was going to make some tea bread with them.

I threw some rather over-dried up dried fruit in a cake not long ago.
It plumped up and was fine.

Mikkima

Thank you all for your opinions. Im going to try it myself after stirring in a good amount of fresh brandy. If I survive I will let others eat them. If not I will get someone to post about my demise.

😁

I believe the best before date means Best - not that it is spoilt. But the flavour may be off. I'd likely bin the 'generous' clearout.

GrannySomerset

I make mincemeat every two or three years and it’s always fine. Stir a little brandy in if it looks a bit dry. Been doing this for 60 years without any ill effects.

this, no worries.

One New Year I found a very large jar of mincemeat in the cupboard. I made a large mincemeat tart with lattice top which we enjoyed with custard.

All the family loved it so I went to make a note of the brand so I could buy more and noticed it was a year out of date. It was Aldi by the way.

I always think food with high sugar content can’t go off.

I have used out of date mincemeat having put a lot of brandy in it .
Or you can bake it in a cake .

I hate anything with dried fruit. However, I buy big bags of it, as the birds love it.
Would the birds eat mincemeat, if it had been made with tea instead of alcohol?

Esmay

I have used out of date mincemeat having put a lot of brandy in it .
Or you can bake it in a cake .

Oh, never thought of that!