Make this in November. Not December, when the lists have grown long and the patience has thinned. November, when the afternoons start going dark by four and the kitchen feels like the right place to be doing something with your hands.

Mincemeat is one of those small domestic acts that rewards you weeks later, when the mince pies are warm and someone reaches for a second one without thinking. There's nothing to it, really. You stir together a bowl of dried fruit, sugar, suet, spices, and brandy, and then you walk away. The cupboard does the rest. The fruit drinks the brandy, the sugar dissolves into the juices, the spices settle into the corners, and a month later you have something dark and glossy and faintly boozy that smells of Christmas the moment you lift the lid.

I wrote it down in the notebook the first year I made my own: "Better than the jar. Won't go back." That's still true. Shop-bought mincemeat is fine. Homemade mincemeat is the difference between fine and properly good, and the difference costs you about half an hour in November and the patience to wait. Patience pays.

A recipe is a conversation, not a contract. Use the dried fruit you like. Swap the brandy for rum or whisky if that's what's in the cupboard. Add a knob of stem ginger if you've got some. The proportions are forgiving and the result will still be unmistakably mincemeat. We're only making dinner. Or in this case, the small thing that makes dinner in six weeks' time feel like Christmas.