Mince Pies

If you are a fan of mince pies and haven't made your own, I insist you do ( next December of course as this post is a tad late ). Given my dislike of fruit cakes, I am strangely a fan of mince pies. Warm straight out of the oven is my fave! I love the way the mince soaks into the pastry and your left with some sweet burnt bits on top. I have never made these before and had great plans for doing my own mincemeat. Of course Nigellas recipe requests you store it two wks before use. This was no use to me on Christmas eve so I used store bought.....yes......out of a jar!

I may have used store bought mincemeat but I made the pastry from scratch so 50% homemade ain't so bad. Sweet shortcrust pastry is my favourite but you can use the basic shortcrust if you wish.

Recipe for Sweet Shortcrust Pastry

Makes 400g

Ingredients

• 200g plain flour, sifted
• 1 tbsp icing sugar
• 100g chilled butter
• 1/2-1 med egg

Instructions

1. Place the flour, icing sugar and butter in a mixer and mix until resembled bread crumbs. Add a little egg at a time until your mixture is just moist enough that it comes together.
2. With your hands, flatten out your dough into disc shapes and wrap in cling film.
3. Leave in fridge for at least 30 mins or if pushed for time 10-15 in the freezer. Pastry done...simples!

For Mince Pies

While the pastry is chilling, preheat the oven  to 180°C. 

Roll out your pastry to about 5mm thick,cut circles and press into tin. I used a mini-muffin tin as I wanted them "bite-size".

Add a tsp of mincemeat. Cut out some stars and place on top.

Pop in the oven and 10-12mins later, you have delicious bite-size mince pies :)

Tasty!

Shirley x