Mince Pies
Welcome to the only mince pie recipe you need for Christmas.
Ingredients
Billington’s Unrefined Demerara Sugar, for sprinkling
2 x 375g ready-rolled shortcrust pastry
Flour, for dusting
An egg yolk, for glazing
For the mincemeat
60g Billington’s Unrefined Molasses Sugar
25g blanched almonds
25g pecans
1 orange, grated zest and juice
1 lemon, grated zest
50g ready-to-eat dried figs
25g ready-to-eat dried pears
25g ready-to-eat dried prunes
25g ready-to-eat dried apricots
25g dried cranberries
25g cut mixed peel
1 small apple, cored, peeled & roughly chopped into small pieces
30g suet
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice
Equipment
A 5cm star-shaped cutter and small holly leaves cutter (or these can be cut out by hand)
Two 12-cup fairy cake tin
Method
Preheat the oven to 200ºC/180ºC fan/gas mark 6. Begin by making the mincemeat. In a large food processor, add all the dried fruit and nuts until roughly chopped. Add the rest of the ingredients and whizz again until combined. Set aside until needed (this can be made up to 2 weeks ahead and stored in an airtight container in the fridge).
Unroll the pastry and cut out 20 x 8cm circles, re-rolling on a lightly floured surface as necessary. Gently push the pastry rounds into the base of the bun tins. Add a heaped spoonful of the mincemeat to fill each one.
Roll out the remaining pastry and cut out 10 star shapes and 20 holly leaves. Decorate each pie with either two holly leaves or a star shape.
Use the remaining pastry to form small balls (for the berries) for the centre of each holly mince pie. Brush the top of each pastry decoration with the egg yolk and sprinkle with Demerara Sugar.
Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until the pastry is lovely and golden. Either serve warm straight from the oven or allow to completely cool on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container.
Recipe courtesy of Billington’s
