If you don’t like mince pies it’s probably because you’re eating store-bought, overly sweet, dubiously flavoured and textured ones. A homemade mince pie is a completely different experience. Short, buttery pastry and delicious mincemeat made with brandy-soaked fruits you can almost taste individually.

Serve them warm and you’ll never eat a store-bought mince pie again.

Mince pies you can make in advance or at the last minute

You can make the mincemeat in advance as it keeps really well. You can make the pastry in advance and freeze it. And when you’ve baked your mince pies you can freeze them – so you can make them in advance too.

If you have frozen your mince pies, you can take them out and allow them to defrost or just put them straight from the freezer into the oven to warm through. You can even keep a secret stash for the summer when you’re craving something special. It’s never too early for a homemade mince pie.

Making mincemeat is easy

Making mincemeat is very straightforward. It’s mainly chopping and mixing – with a bit of grating thrown in. It keeps in sterilised jars in or out of the fridge. It’s best made at least 24 hours before you want to use it: that way the flavours can develop and the dried fruit will plump up. It’s still good made and used immediately, though!

Make your pastry ahead of time or when you need it

If you want to make your pastry in advance, instead of forming it into a ball, flatten it out a little so it’s easier to both freeze and roll out later. Wrap it in cling film, label it, and put it in the freezer until you’re ready to make your mince pies.

If you want to use it straight away, try to allow some time for it to chill in the fridge first.

Luxury mini mince pies

There’s nothing standard about homemade mince pies. And mini ones look even more special and feel like an indulgent treat. They make great gifts too – take a dozen in a cellophane bag, tied with some Christmas or sparkly ribbon, as a gift next time you’re invited for drinks at Christmas.

Recipe

Mincemeat

Ingredients: use this luxury homemade mincemeat recipe – you can halve or divide the recipe by three if you only want to make one or two batches of mince pies.

Pastry

Double the recipe if you want more mince pies or freeze some pastry to use another day.

Ingredients:

250g plain flour or gluten-free alternative

175g butter, chilled

20g sugar

1 egg, plus a beaten egg for glazing

Method

Sieve the flour into a bowl or the bowl of a food processor. Cut the butter into small cubes and add to the flour. Use your food processor or your fingers to rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles like breadcrumbs.

Mix in the sugar and add the egg. Combine to form a ball. Knead briefly and then wrap in clingfilm The pastry can be frozen at this point, or put it into the fridge to chill for half an hour or so.

Make the mince pies

Set the oven to 200°C/180°C fan.

Roll out your pastry thinly and, using a round cutter, cut out your bases. Use these to line your mini muffin tin. Cut out the same number of stars (or smaller rounds if you’d like traditional mince pies) for your toppers.

Fill with mincemeat and top each one with a pastry star. If you have time to chill the mince pies again at this point they should lose less butter when they cook. If you don’t, it’s not a problem!

Brush the pastry on top of each mini mince pie with beaten egg.

Bake for around 18-20 minutes, making sure they are golden brown. You may need to gently push the star back down with the back of a teaspoon as soon as they come out of the oven. They still need to be super hot at this point or the stars can crack.

Leave for a minute or two to cool down and then carefully remove them and leave them to cool properly on a rack. If they break up easily as you try to take them out of the tin it’s too soon. However if you leave them too long you risk the caramelised sugar from the mincemeat around them sticking and you’ll struggle to get them out.

Enjoy them warm – delicious!

Categories: Baking, Fruit, Gifts, Pastry, Recipes

Tags: baking, Christmas, food, homemade gifts, mince pies, pastry, recipe, recipes