Mary Berry Mincemeat Loaf Cake
, Updated Nov 27, 2025
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Mary Berry’s Mincemeat Loaf Cake is incredibly easy to make and tastes incredible! Perfect for sharing and gifting during the holidays and suitable for baking in your air fryer or the oven. This light fruit cake takes just minutes to throw together – I know it will become a festive favorite.
You will also like Mary Berry’s Foolproof Victoria Sponge recipe.
I always turn to Mary Berry’s foolproof recipes whenever I am baking for the holidays. Her mincemeat loaf cake is a true classic and one of the easiest Christmas cakes you will ever bake. The mincemeat keeps these little loaf cakes beautifully moist and the recipe is a one-bowl wonder, ready to bake in literally five minutes.
So quick in fact, that your oven won’t have time to preheat – which is why I decided to bake these in my air fryer 😉 These go down so well, you may want to double the recipe to make a few of these for gifting during the holidays. They are also fabulous for Christmas school fairs.
Here’s What You’ll Need
I tweaked Mary’s recipe, only slightly, to make it EVEN EASIER. The cake itself uses only five ingredients with a couple of additional topping options to jazz things up a bit. You will need to use two 450g (1 pound) small loaf pans to bake the mincemeat loaf cakes.
- Self-raising flour – check it is within date if you don’t bake often
- Light soft brown sugar
- Eggs – medium eggs at room temperature
- Margarine straight from the fridge or softened unsalted butter
- Mincemeat – use a good quality store-bought mincemeat or you can use homemade of course.
- Blanched almonds and cocktail or glacé cherries to top the cakes
- Smooth apricot jam, to glaze
How to Make Mincemeat Loaf Cake
PREPARE THE CAKE
- Mist two small loaf pans with cake release and line the sides with baking paper, letting it hang over the sides of the tin. I like to clip the paper to the pans, especially if baking in an air fryer.
- Add the self-raising flour and sugar to a large mixing bowl. Top with the eggs, Stork or butter, and mincemeat.
- Beat together using a hand mixer until the batter is well mixed, stopping to scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl with a spatula as needed.
- Use a cookie scoop to divide the batter between the cake pans. Level and top with the blanched almonds.
Bake the loaf cake
- IN THE AIR FRYER: Preheat the air fryer to 150°C (300°F) for 3 minutes. Add the cake pans to the air fryer basket and bake for 45 minutes, or until the cake is golden and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. If the toothpick comes out with wet batter, add 5-7 minutes to the cooking time (See notes).
- IN THE OVEN: Bake in a 160°C (320°F) preheated oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the cake passes the toothpick test.
DECORATE AND SERVE
- Lift the cakes out of the tins using the baking paper. Brush with the warm apricot jam to glaze and decorate with halved glacé cherries. Leave to dry for 10 minutes then brush with another layer of jam.
- Cool before slicing as the cakes can bit a bit crumbly if you rush to cut them while still warm.
Recipe Notes and Tips
This is a great recipe for using up leftover mincemeat. If you don’t have enough, you can supplement by adding dried fruit such as sultanas or raisins. If the fruit is really dry, you can soak it in hot tea or some brandy before using.
- CAN I MAKE ONE LARGE MINCEMEAT CAKE? You can bake this recipe in a 950g (2lbs) cake pan but it tends to brown too much and becomes a little dry as it needs to bake for even longer. I would advise you to use the smaller loaf pans.
- STORING AND FREEZING The cake keeps really well for about a week at room temperature in a cake container. You can also freeze it, well wrapped, for up to two months.
- ADJUSTING COOKING TIME IN AIR FRYER I tested this recipe in my Instant Vortex and Cosori air fryers and I discovered that the Cosori tends to run about 5° degrees hotter, which means the cake browns a lot faster. If that is the case with your air fryer you can adjust by reducing the temperature slightly.
- SKIP THE DECORATIONS AND FEED THE CAKES Instead of decorating and glazing the mincemeat cakes, you can pierce them with a skewer and feed them with brandy. Drizzle the brandy over the cake and wrap in parchment. Repeat a couple of times over the period of 10 days. The cake can then be topped with marzipan and royal icing (check out my Christmas Cake for more details).
Please leave a comment and rating if you try this Mincemeat Loaf recipe, follow me on Pinterest for more easy recipes and don’t forget to tag me on @Instagram or TikTok so I can see your creations.
Mary Berry Mincemeat Loaf Cake (Air Fryer or Oven)
Video
Equipment
Ingredients
For the cake
- 225 g (1¼ cups + 2 tbsp) self-raising flour
- 150 g (3/4 cup) soft light brown sugar
- 150 g Stork , or soft unsalted butter
- 425 g (scant 1 pound) mincemeat
- 2 medium eggs (large eggs in the US)
- 50 g (2oz) blanched almonds, halved
To decorate
- 3 tbsp smooth apricot jam , to glaze
- 20 glacé cherries , halved
Instructions
PREPARE THE CAKE
- Mist two small loaf tins with cake release and line the sides with baking paper, letting it hang over the sides of the tin. I like to clip the paper to the pans, especially if baking in an air fryer.
- Add the self-raising flour and sugar to a large mixing bowl. Top with the eggs, Stork or butter, and mincemeat.
- Beat together using a hand mixer until the batter is well mixed, stopping to scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl with a spatula as needed.
- Use a cookie scoop to divide the batter between the cake pans. Level and top with the blanched almonds.
TO AIR FRY
- Preheat the air fryer to 150°C (300°F) for 3 minutes. Add the cake pans to the air fryer basket and bake for 45 minutes, or until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. If the toothpick comes out with wet batter, add 5-7 minutes to the cooking time (See notes).
TO OVEN BAKE
- Bake in a 160°C (320°F) preheated oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the cake passes the toothpick test. (If you are using a Fan oven reduce the temperature by 15-20 degrees)
DECORATE AND SERVE
- Lift the cakes out of the tins using the baking paper and onto a wire rack.
- Heat the jam in a saucepan and stir. Brush with the warm apricot jam to glaze and decorate with halved glacé cherries. Leave to dry for 10 minutes then brush with another layer of jam.
- Cool before slicing as the cakes can bit a bit crumbly if you rush to cut them while still warm.
Notes
- This is a great recipe for using up leftover mincemeat from making mince pies. If you don’t have enough, you can supplement by adding dried fruit such as sultanas or raisins. If the fruit is really dry, you can soak it in hot tea or some brandy to plump it up before using.
- You can bake this recipe in a 950g (2lbs) cake pan but it tends to brown too much and becomes a little dry as it needs to bake for even longer. I would advise you to use the smaller loaf pans.
- STORING AND FREEZING The cake keeps really well for about a week at room temperature in an airtight container. You can also freeze it, well wrapped, for up to two months.
- ADJUSTING COOKING TIME IN AIR FRYER I tested this recipe in my Instant Vortex and Cosori air fryers and I discovered that the Cosori tends to run about 5 degrees hotter, which means the cake browns a lot faster. If that is the case with your air fryer you can adjust by reducing the temperature slightly.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is always approximate, and will depend on quality of ingredients and serving sizes.
What exactly is a small loaf pan? This is not a standard unit of measurement and I cannot find it defined anywhere.
Hi Philip – it’s a 1lb Loaf Tin. If you look in the recipe card for the recipe, there’s a link in the equipment list, in case you’re still not sure. Thanks for the question and for trying the recipe!