Mince pies. And why most things are improved with a slosh of booze.
Deep breaths, then, and enough of this doom and gloom. Hell, it’s Christmas.
Seeing as I’m currently obsessing about mince pies, I thought I’d share my latest ressup with you. It’s the pastry, see? I thought I had it perfect, but it was too short, too ‘dissolve into crumbs as soon as you pick it up’, which is perfect in some ways, but mince pies need to be handled. The pastry needed to be crisper. And several hundred later, by jove I think I’ve got it. Brace yourself, then:
The perfect mince pie. Honest.
250g cold butter
400g plain flour
1 tbsp caster sugar
Pinch salt
1 egg yolk
First, then, cut your butter into little cubes and bung it in your wondrously gorgeous food processor (I love you, Jen)with the flour, sugar and a pinch of salt:
Mix gently until it resembles breadcrumbs:
Now add your egg yolk and let it continue stirring gently until the mixture just comes together. If it’s really not happening you can add a tablespoon of water or orange juice (or rosewater if you’re really posh), but you want a firm dough, remember, so don’t go mad.
Now, splodge the dough gently into two balls, clingfilm them and whop them into the fridge for 20 mins. Don’t leave them too long – rock hard pastry is a sod to roll out.
Preheat the oven to 190 degrees/gas 5 and get ready to mess with your mincemeat. Now, don’t get me wrong – normal mincemeat in a jar is fine, but let’s face it, there’s not much in life that can’t be improved with a bit of alcohol (moved country? Miss your friends? Trust me, it’s not time that’s a great healer, it’s booze), so splosh some in: I’m loving Cherry Brandy at the moment, but anything will do: Port, Brandy, Cointreau - whatever you have to pep it up a tad. I also add a handful of dried cranberries because I like the colour. But don’t bother if you don’t want to.
So now, just roll the pastry out and use a cutter to make circles. Pop the circles gently into a muffin tin and put a scant teaspoon of your boozy mincemeat in each one :
Now you can either cut out another slightly smaller circle to use as a lid, and pass the whole kit and caboodle onto the Eggy Wash Department (you’ll need a small, willing child for this – just use the leftover egg white to paint over the pies and add a sprinkle of sugar):
Or you can whip up a quick Madeira cake batter by creaming 100g butter with 100g caster sugar until light and fluffy, then beating in 2 eggs, a splash of vanilla extract and finally folding in 100g self raising flour. Blob a small amount (about a dessert spoonful) on top of each mince pie to make pastry mincey cakey pies:
And that’s it. Bake for about 10 – 15 minutes and serve with more booze in the shape of some warm, mulled wine. Ah lubly. I feel better already.
Actually I just love cake full stop!
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