These delicious sticky oaty squares are an easy alternative to mince pies allowing all the taste of Christmas with little of the work that rolling and cutting the pastry needs. The recipe has the added bonus of using exactly a whole jar of mincemeat. I cannot be alone in finding that I am always left with either a spoonful of mincemeat and no pastry case or a couple of pastry cases and no mincemeat. Such are the problems that I strive with each December.

The recipe is very simple: mix the dry ingredients, melt the butter then stir this in. Then press half the oat mixture into your tin, carefully spread over the mincemeat and top with the remaining oats. Bake, cool, cut and eat.

I do suggest is that you line your tin with silicon or Teflon lining sheets. I have pieces cut to size for all my most used tins and baking sheets. It’s not cheap but the saving in time, frustration and ingredients when you no longer have to chip bread, cakes and biscuits from the metal make it well worth while.

225g 8oz porridge oats
170g 6oz soft brown sugar
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
85g 3oz plain flour
170g 6oz melted butter
425g 15oz jar mincemeat

Mix the oats, flour, sugar and bicarbonate together and then stir in the butter. Press half this mixture into the base of a 12″x7″x1″ tin. Spread the mincemeat over this and then carefully scatter the remaining mixture over the top. Bake in a pre-heated oven 180C 350F gas 4 for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to cool before slicing into bars.