Mince pies with a twist

As it’s practically dark by the time the boys are awake from afternoon naps and we’ve got ready to go out, we can’t go to the park or even in the garden really, so baking and craft activities have been filling our late afternoons and early evenings recently. And as we’re in December, I thought it was time for some Christmas baking.

I don’t eat loads of mince pies, but it’s always nice to have a few over the Christmas period, and as I’m trying to use up jars and tins in the cupboards, I thought it would be fun to add some stem ginger that I opened a while ago to the mince meat, to add extra favour and spice. I prefer to make mince pies with unsweetened pastry, because the mince meat itself is so sweet, and to add another flavour I decided to put some cinnamon in with the flour. Finally, I added a splash of Amaretto to the filling, again because the bottle I have could do with using up having sat there untouched for a while since we’ve had kids.

Andrew enjoys rolling out pastry, so that was also a good reason to make pies, and he helped me cut out the rounds and put them in the muffin tins – we went for deep filled pies rather than the little ones you can make in fairy cake tins.

If you’d like to give these a go, here’s the recipe….

Ingredients – makes 10 deep fill pies

Filling

• 400g jar of mincemeat
• about 4 chunks of stem ginger, cut into small cubes
• optional: splash of Amaretto (or any other alcohol that you like)

Method

1. Lightly grease the holes in a muffin tin, and preheat the oven to 180ºC (fan).
2. Put the flour and cinnamon in a bowl and mix until evenly distributed.
3. Chop the butter into smallish chunks (make sure it’s as cold as possible) and toss into the flour.
4. Use your hands to work the butter into the flour until it resembles bread crumbs.
5. Add a small amount of water at a time and mix until it starts to form a stiff dough, then leave to one side whilst you mix the filling.
6. Mix the ingredients for the filling together in another bowl.
7. Take the pastry and roll out on a floured surface.
8. Cut 10 larger circles and 10 smaller circles to fit the size of the muffin tin holes.
9. Place the larger circles in the holes, fill with the filling, then places the lids on top, sealing with a bit of cold water run around the rim and the pastry pieces pressed together.
10. Bake in the oven for about 15-20 minutes, until the pastry is lightly golden.
11. Leave to cool in the tins, before turning out with the help of a sharp knife to loosen them from the tin.
12. Eat as fresh as possible, and they can also be frozen.

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