Homemade Mince Pies Recipe
This Christmas mince pie recipe is in two parts. First of all, you need to make your mince pie filling in advance. You can do this months before to allow the mincemeat to mature but don't worry if you forget. The mincemeat can be made a few days before you need it, too.We make our shortcrust pastry and create our mince pies either on the day we'll be eating them or the day before. For this mince pie recipe, you can make the pies up to one week in advance and store them in an airtight container in the fridge, if you like.
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Equipment
- 12 hole mini tart tin
- sterilised glass jars with lids
- large saucepan
- mixing bowl
- sieve
- pestle & mortar
- circular and star shaped pastry cutters of relevant size
- rolling pin
Servings 12 pies
Ingredients
For The Mincemeat Mince Pie Filling
- 100 grams currants
- 100 grams raisins
- 100 grams cranberries (dried)
- 100 grams mixed dried fruit (sour cherries, apricots, other berries)
- 2 small apples (peeled, cored & chopped into small cubes)
- 1 small orange (juiced & rind finely grated )
- 125 grams brown sugar
- 80 grams butter (refrigerated & cubed)
- 150 millilitres brandy
- 20 grams pine nuts (lightly toasted & roughly chopped)
- 2 cloves (crushed & ground)
- 1 whole star anise
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
For The Shortcrust Pastry
- 160 grams plain (all purpose) flour (plus extra for dusting)
- 75 grams refrigerated butter (cubed)
- 35 grams icing sugar (plus extra for dusting)
- 1 orange (juiced & rind finely grated)
- 1 lemon (rind finely grated)
- 1 egg yolk (beaten)
- 20 grams butter (to grease your tart tin)
Instructions
For The Mincemeat Mince Pie Filling
- Except for the brandy, add all your mince pie filling ingredients to a large saucepan.
- Heat the mixture gently, stirring gently as it heats.
- Once the butter has melted, allow the mixture to simmer gently for around 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Remove from the heat and allow to cool, completely.
- Add your brandy and mix in.
- Now add your mince pie filling to your sterilised jars and seal with a lid.
For The Sweet Shortcrust Pastry
- From a height, sieve your flour and icing sugar into a mixing bowl.
- Now add your cubed butter, cubes separated.
- With cold hands use your fingertips and thumb to rub the butter flour and icing sugar together.
- Try to work quickly and keep going until you have a crumbly mixture.
- Now add your lemon and orange rind and mix in.
- Add the juice of your orange and the beaten egg yolk.
- Now you can start to bring your pastry together. Use one hand to work the pastry until you have a ball of dough.
- Lightly flour it, wrap it tightly in cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for 10 minutes, at least.
- When you want to make your mince pies, lightly dust a clean, flat workspace with flour.
- Take your pastry. slice around a quarter of it away and leave to one side, covered. This is for your star shaped tops, later.
- Pat the rest of your pastry down to flatten it a little and give it a light dusting of flour.
- Roll it out into a rough circular shape until it is approximately 3 millimetres thick.
- Take your round pastry cutter and cut 12 circles out of the pastry.
- Lightly grease the hollows of your mini tart tin.
- Take a circle of pastry and place it over the first hollow and gently ease it inside. Don't worry about trying to push the pastry right to the edges. Just let it rest into place.
- Keep going until you've filled all the hollows.
- Now add 1 heaped teaspoon of mince pie filling to each pastry case. Be careful not to add too much as it will bubble up during cooking and overflow.
- Now, take the rest of your pastry and roll it out.
- Take your star shaped pastry cutter and cut 12 stars.
- Carefully place each star on top of your mince pies.
- Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius (180 degrees for a fan oven) and place your mince pies in the centre of the oven.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden.
- Once cooked, remove your tin from the oven and leave to cool.
- Once your mince pies have cooled, carefully tease them from the mini tart tin using a sharp knife.
- Place your mince pies on a large serving plate and use a sieve to dust the tops with icing sugar.
Notes
- For the purposes of the mince pie recipe, we have calculated a rough preparation and cooking time that treats the filling and pastry as if you were making them at the same time. However, you can make your filling months in advance, if you like, so it can mature.
- For reference, our mince pie recipe uses a mini tart tin with 12 hollows measuring 9cms in diameter. Our circular pastry cutter is 7.5 centimetres in diameter and our star shaped cutter measures 6cms across from point to point.
- For the ingredients for our mince pie filling, there are no hard and fast rules. If you can't get dried cranberries for example, choose another dried fruit. The base is the currants and the raisins. After that, we experiment with different dried fruits each year.
- An important tip with regards your choice of dried fruits - make sure it is a fruit that doesn't have noticeable pips or seeds. This will ruin the texture of your mince pie filling.
- The type of fresh apple you use for your mince pie filling should be a crisp, firm variety. We use Granny Smith because it is crisp and sour.
- The mince pie filling recipe will leave you with leftovers. Feel free to make more mince pies. You could experiment with frozen puff pastry or filo.
- Alternatively, you could add the mixture to stewed apples to make a festive apple pie or apple crumble.
- Or you could tuck it away in the cupboard and use it again next Christmas.
Nutrition
Calories: 220kcal
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