- 14
- 30 mins
- 110 mins
Ingredients
- 900 g Mincemeat
- 400 g Plain Flour
- 80 g Caster Sugar
- 150 g Ground Almonds
- 250 g Butter + a little extra for greasing the tin
- 2 Eggs
- Milk - to glaze the pies
Preparation
Step 1
In my opinion Christmas isn’t complete without mince pies and nothing beats a homemade mince pie – shop bought ones just aren’t the same.
I remember seeing an interview a while ago with Paul Hollywood who said that he preferred to make his mince pies in a muffin tin so that you could fit in plenty of filling, and that’s the approach I’ve taken. Another advantage of this approach is that it allows you to keep your pastry a little thicker which makes it easier to work with.
Mince pies are really easy to make. In my experience it takes about 15 minutes to make the pastry and 15 minutes to make the pies (then extra time for chilling and cooking). You can save time by making the pastry in a food processor. However, I prefer to make it by hand so that it doesn’t get overworked and, to be honest, by the time I’ve washed up my food processor afterwards it doesn’t really save time anyway!
Pastry can be a little fiddly to work with, especially this pastry as it include grounds almonds which makes the mixture more crumbly. However, I’ve included some of my favourite cheats in the recipe below which should make the process nice and simple.
There is one very annoying aspect to my recipe – it makes 14 pies. This is annoying because muffin tins tend to come as either six or twelve. Unfortunately it’s not easy to adjust the recipe to make a more convenient amount as it contains eggs. If you’ve only got a 12-hole muffin tin then you could freeze the spare pastry to use later.
MAKES 14 PIES
Make the pastry
Add the caster sugar (80g) and ground almonds (150g).
Cut the butter (250g) into cubes and add to the bowl.
Once your mixture is the consistency of breadcrumbs, in a separate bowl, beat the egg (2 eggs) and the add it into the mixture.
Mix the egg into the mixture and then bring the mixture together with your hands -
if the mixture is a bit dry and crumbly, knead it a few times until it comes together. Be careful not to over-knead the pastry as this may make it less tender to eat.
Make the pies
I prefer not to make the pastry too thin as I like a generous amount of mincemeat filling and keeping the pastry a little thicker gives the right balance or pastry and filling. I sometimes have trouble with pastry sticking, so I cheat and put the pastry between two sheets of cling film before rolling. The cling film is then easily peeled off. I also prefer not to roll out all of the pastry in one go. I roll out enough for a few circles, keeping the rest in the fridge until I'm ready to use it.
I find it easiest to lay the circle of pastry flat on the tin and the gently push down the centre. I then gently push the bottom to the edges of the tin. If you accidentally make a hole you can use a small amount of spare pastry to patch the hole. just make sure to seal the edges so that the filling doesn't leak out.
Fill each pie with a generous tablespoon of mincemeat. Don't fill each pie completely to the top as you need to leave space to add a lid.
Cut out 14 smaller circles and place onto the top of each pie. Gently press around the edges to seal the lid to the base of the pie
Preheat the oven to 200ºC/180ºC fan
Thanks James, I hope you enjoy them. We’ve finished the first batch already so I’m going to have to make some more!
Thanks Sarah, they tasted good too (all gone now, I’m going to have to make more!!)
I really agree with you (and Paul Hollywood) on using a muffin tin: it makes it so much easier to put the mince pies together, especially if you are getting the help of little hands!
I suspect that I’ll need more than a muffin tin to make neat and tidy pies with my boys. Our melting snowman biscuits looked a little like we’d made them for Halloween rather than Christmas!
I can’t stand a mince pie which is all pastry and no mincemeat. You and I (and Mel and Paul Hollywood) are very wise – we know the right way to make a proper mince pie. I’ll be over later to link to this week’s #festivefoodfriday. Happy Christmas x
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