Making your own mince pies is always a nice way to start Christmas. You can do it from scratch, mixing up your own mincemeat before filling your pastry cases, but with good ingredients cheaply and readily available from the supermarket, it’s often better to start there and improve upon the mixture.
This is cheating, of course. But then is it any different to using canned topping for a cheesecake you’ve baked yourself? Or making a cake with dried fruit from a packet rather than fruit you’ve dried yourself? I don’t think so. Christmas is busy as it is, so when you can buy enough mincemeat for two dozen pies for just 80p, this both saves time and makes one festive job a little bit easier.
For starters, you need to make your pastry, following Blagger’s standard pastry recipe and doubling the quantities, so using 180g of butter, 100ml of water and 380g of plain flour.
Roll this out on a cool surface and then use two pastry cutters of different sizes to cut out circles. You’ll use the larger circle as the base of your pie, with the smaller one on top.
Grease a bun tin and line the cups with the larger pastry circles, then put to one side as you work on the filling.
Shop-bought mincemeat can often be improved by adding brandy or rum. Our preference is for rum, so we’re pouring in a little and mixing it well. You need to strike a careful balance here; too little and you won’t taste it, too much and your mixture will be too wet and ooze our of the pies when you bake them. We have found that around a tablespoon-full (15ml) is a good starting point for your first batch. When you know how that reacts, you can add more or less depending on the results.
Once you’ve mixed the rum or brandy into the mincemeat, spoon a little into each pie base. A rounded teaspoon-full is about right for the average pie case. It looks like a very small amount, but it does expand when cooked due to the suet (or vegetarian equivalent). If you add too much to each one then you won’t be able to make so many pies, and those that you do get are liable to be spoiled as the filling spills out and burns on the tin.
Lightly wet the edges of your pie bases and put on the lids, pressing them into place so that they stick to the wetted edge of the bases. Lightly prick the lid of each one with a fork three times and brush them with a little milk, then put them into an oven at 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit) for 20 minutes or until golden on top.
Carefully remove them onto a rack to cool (they will be very hot, so don’t eat them right away).
They can be eaten warm or cold, and they freeze well. We’re still eating a batch from last Christmas that has spent 12 months in the freezer.
If we’re eating frozen pies, we first let them defrost for a couple of hours, then sprinkle them with sugar and put them in the oven for 5 minutes to warm. They’re great served with a mug of tea on a cold winter’s afternoon.
If you’re making mince pies for vegetarians, check the jar before buying your mincemeat. Many mixes contain suet, which is an animal product. However, there are vegetarian alternatives that taste identical and work just as well. For safety, it’s often best to buy them, in case you have any unexpected vegetarians pop in for a visit.
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