I guess you've seen and eaten enough of mincemeat or dried fruit things by now. I don't know if it's only in the UK that a vast amount of mincemeatish sticky mass is consumed around this time of year. This appears in mince pies, Christmas cake, and Christmas pudding. The difference between Christmas cake and Christmas pudding, just in case you don't know, is the former is baked and marginally lighter than the latter which is steamed. English people eat Christmas puddings for dessert on Christmas Day with a slab of brandy butter. Mince pies and Christmas cakes are for tea time.
We, orientals, aren't mad keen on any of these. We find it way too sweet and heavy. I personally don't mind, but I can only eat a tiny morsel of it at a time and without brandy butter or cream. Mincemeat itself is nothing but fried fruit and it's good for you. It's full of minerals and fibre - good for gums and teeth (apparently), bones, and intestines of course;)
I tried to find a bit more...err...congenial mincemeat recipes for us orientals, and this is one of them. I'm not sure if it's any lighter calorie-wise than mince pies, but at least you can control the amount of sugar you use in the crumble. If you want a bit healthier element to it you can mix some oats in the crumble. If you are after even lighter taste you can cook a tart apple and mix it with mince or eat this hot apple and mince mixture without any crumble (but maybe with a bit of cold crème fraîche or vanilla ice cream).
Ingredients (for 20cm springform round cake tin):
140g flour
80g cold butter
50g soft brown sugar
60g ground almond
350g mincemeat (for a jar)
40g walnuts or pecan nuts (option)
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Put all the ingredients apart from mincemeat and nuts into a bowl and mix well, first with your fingertips to rub butter into dry ingredients. Put half of this into the cake tin and pat it out evenly. Do not push against the bottom of the tin too hard. It won't taste nice.
Spread the mincemeat evenly on top of the crumble mixture and sprinkle lightly the remaining crumble mixture. Keep the top layer fairly loose but make sure the mince is covered. Scatter the nuts, if you are using, and bake for about 30-40 minutes.
I had it with brandy cream from a pot :)