Hello my loves,
Whenever I think of Christmas time, the first desert/treat food I think of is Mince Pies. Mince Pies alone, Mince Pies with custard or Mince Pies with cream, it’s the season for the best Mince Pies in town to be made and I think everyone is loving it.
I love everything about Mince Pies, in our house we tend to buy the shortbread based Mince Pies and I honestly don’t think you can beat them. The mouth watering smell of them cooking in the oven, the sprinkling of sugar covering your lips as you take the first bite and the Mince Meat melting into the base as it crumbles in your mouth. Ugh it’s making me hungry as I talk about it haha. Mince Pies are certainly a pudding you either love or hate, just like marmite. They have a certain taste that some absolutely love like myself, and some just cannot stand.
However you feel about Mince Pies, wether you love or loath them, you can’t beat making them during Christmas time for the family. This was my first try of ever making Mince Pies this year as it’s usually my Nan making them and I honestly think I done an alright job (if I do say so myself).
Anyway, I’ll stop rambling on about how much myself and my family love Mince Pies and actually get telling you how I made them;
Ingredients For Mince Meat:
- 6oz of shredded suet
- 1/2 lb of moist sugar
- 1/2 lb of currants
- 1/2 lb raisins
- 6oz of mixed peal
- 1/2 lb of grated apples
- 2 lemons rind & juice
- 2oz of almonds chopped
- 1/2 a teaspoon of mix spice
- 1/8 pint of brandy
How To Make Mince Meat:
- Firstly mix together the suet, sugar, currants, raisins, peal, lemon, chopped almonds, the grated apples, the teaspoon of spice and 1/8 pint of brandy in a large bowl.
- Once mixed together, leave to stand over night.
- The morning after put the mixture into jars ready to put in the Mince pies later on.
Now the Mince Meat is made and ready for later, it’s time to make the Mince pies themselves.
Ingredients To Make Mince Pies:
- 368g / 13oz of plain flour
- 255g / 9oz of unsalted butter, softened
- 113g / 4oz of caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
- 1 large egg plus 1 beatened egg for glazing
How To Make Mince Pies:
- Firstly, gather all your ingredients and equipment together and preheat the oven to 220C / 200C / gas mark 7.
- Secondly, place the plain flour and butter into a bowl and rub together to a crumb like consistency.
- Now add the caster sugar and the egg and mix together.
- Then tip out onto a lightly floured surface and fold until the pastry comes together but be careful not to over fold!
- Wrap the pastry in cling film and chill for 10 minutes.
- Once the pastry has chilled, roll out the pastry to 3mm thick. Using a cutter around 10cm big, cut out 12 bases and place them into the muffin tins.
- Now you’ve done the bases, put 1 and a half table spoon of Mince Meat mix into the bases.
- Brush the edge of each pie with a little bit of the beaten egg to give it a glaze.
- Once you’ve glazed the pies, re-roll out the pastry and cut out star shapes (or whatever shape you like, completely up to you!) and press them on top to seal the pies.
- Glaze the rest of the pies with the beaten egg, sprinkle caster sugar all over the top of the pies and make small cut in the tops.
- Now you’ve made your pies, place them in the ovens for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
- Once cooked, leave to cool in the trays for 10 minutes before slowly releasing from the muffin trays onto a wire rack to continue cooling.
- To finish off, dust some icing sugar over the top and your Mince Pies are ready to serve.
And that’s your Mince Pies cooked, cooled and ready to eat! This may look like a really long and tricky recipe but honestly it’s not as hard as it seems. I wanted to make sure it was as detailed as possible for those of you who are first timers like myself. I know reading detailed recipes help me unbelievably and I like to think mine help you guys too!
I really hope you guys enjoyed today’s post and enjoy making your own Mince Pies. I look forward to seeing them all over your social media accounts. Make sure you let me know below or on my social media what your account makes are so I can check you out and follow you.
Sending tons of love to you all as always,
Elle xo
For any business enquiries, please email me at: ellegracedeveson@outlook.com
