Chocolate Mincemeat Eccles cakes

The name is pretty clumsy, I'll grant you. I couldn't think of a better way to describe these, 'chocolate mincemeat in flaky pastry' sounds a bit dull. They aren't even Eccles cakes, but as I used the same sort of pastry and shaped them in the same way, I felt this title conveyed what they are reasonably well.

Proper Eccles cakes don't use mincemeat as a filling (let alone experimental chocolatey mincemeat), they use a less gloopy, less rich mix of currents, butter, sugar, citrus zest and spices. Mincemeat is an obvious substitution, especially if, like me, you make mincemeat in such large quantities you need a few different recipes to finish it up post-Christmas.

This was my first time cooking with the chocolate and sour cherry mincemeat, and I was really happy with the results. I was concerned the chocolate would take over and it would be too sickly, but the characteristic tang of the mincemeat still comes through, helped by the additional orange juice and the sour cherries. The chocolate is just another dimension to the mincemeat mix.

I used, as I always do for Eccles cake, this Delia recipe, using butter and not the suggested margarine.