- Makes 36 mince pies - Ready in 1 hour -
*This recipe makes the BEST mince pie pastry ever, thanks to the ground almonds and the rich egg yolks*
*Don't double-up this recipe as it would be too hard to rub in the butter with big quantities*
Gather together…
250g plain flour (plus extra for dusting the trays and the worksurface).
50g ground almonds.
100g white granulated /white caster sugar (sieved).
150g butter (cold, cubed).
2 medium egg YOLKS (the whites aren’t needed, so put them aside for making an omelette later).
2 -3 tsp of cold water.
500g jar(s) of NICE mincemeat (see the homemade Christmas Season: Festive Mincemeat recipe if you'd like to make your own delicious filling).
1 tsp white granulated /white caster sugar (for sprinkling over before putting them into the oven).
1 tsp icing sugar (to sieve over before serving) - optional.
Get cooking…
1. Prepare three 12 hole VERY SHALLOW baking tins by sprinkling each tin with a generous 1 tsp of flour - this sounds like a lot of flour, but it is essential that the tin holes are well-floured so that the pies don't stick! Sprinkle some flour in the holes in the tins, rub the flour round with your fingers and then sprinkle on some more. Also, make sure that you use very shallow tins or the pastry will be too hard to remove.
2. Put the 250g of plain flour and the 50g of ground almonds in a bowl. Sieve in the 100g of white caster / granulated sugar. Mix.
3. Add the 150g of cubed, cold butter to the dry ingredients and mix with your fingertips for 30 seconds or so to begin to combine the ingredients.
4. Then use a handheld stick electric chopper (or use a food processor if you have one) for thirty seconds or so until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Or continue to rub the mixture into breadcrumbs by hand – this will take a few minutes.
5. Add the 2 egg YOLKS and ONLY 2 tsp of cold water, stir with a spoon.
6. Flour your hands and draw the mixture together until it is held in one lump. If there is still dry mixture at the base of the bowl, add an extra 1/2 tsp of cold water to draw the mixture properly together, then add an extra final 1/2 tsp if still needed.
7. Knead the ball of pastry on a clean and floured worksurface (for about 10 seconds only) until smooth.
8. Divide the ball of pastry into 3 fairly equal lumps and put them back into the bowl.
9. Roll out 1/3 of the pastry on a well-floured surface with a well-floured rolling pin until it is approx. 50p coin thickness i.e. the pastry is nice and THIN. Keep moving and turning the pastry and cleaning off the rolling pin and dusting with more flour to minimise sticking.
10. Cut out 12 round bases (I use a round cutter 7cm in diameter so the pies are nice and deep) and 12 star lids (I use a small star cutter, 5 ½ cm tip to tip diameter as I don’t like too much pastry so the ‘lid’ doesn’t cover the top, it just sits in the middle of the filling for decoration). Gently place the bases in the holes of one of the prepared trays, as you cut them, stack the lids to one side of your worksurface in piles of 6 (so you can keep track of how many you have done).
11. Then repeat with the other two balls of pastry, making bases and lids for the other two baking trays. If you don't have enough baking trays to make them all at once, the pastry can be wrapped (preferably in a reusable beeswax wrap) and stored in the fridge for up to 24 hours, allowing you to make another trayful (or two) the following day. *NOTE* you can place the bases into reusable-silicone cupcake cases (and fill them and top them as normal) if you have just a few too many mince pies for your trays. I place the silicone cases directly onto a wire oven shelf (or you could stand them on a tray, if you have a tray which will fit next to the existing baking trays). The mince pies baked in this way will come out more folded / fluted, but just as tasty.
12. Set the oven to 200 C (180 C fan) or Gas 6.
13. Place the mince pie bases VERY GENTLY (don’t press down too much or they will stick) into the well-floured tin holes.
14. Spoon 1 tsp of festive mincemeat into each, be quite generous with the filling but not too generous or they could leak and get welded to the tray!
15. Place a pastry star on top of each pie and press down lightly so they don’t slide off whilst in the oven!
16. Sprinkle the star lids with white caster / granulated sugar – put the 1 tsp of sugar in your palm and use your fingertips to pinch and sprinkle sugar over each pie.
17. Bake the pies for 15 - 18 min, until slightly golden.
18. Remove the cooked pies from the oven. Being careful of the hot filling, use a dinner knife to 'jemmy' under the pastry of each case to move the cases around whilst still sat in the tin, as soon as they come out of the oven, to stop them sticking.
19. Properly remove the pies from tins after 5 minutes (so there is less chance of you burning your fingers) and put them onto cooling racks. They will be boiling hot inside at first, so let them cool for at least 5 minutes on the rack before sampling!
20. Sieve 1 tsp of icing sugar over the mince pies (if you get the chance to - ours always start being consumed as soon as they are out of the tins!) and enjoy.
21. These freeze and defrost / reheat well, so I usually make about 4x batches of this recipe ahead to freeze and last over Christmas.
Thanks to my friend E and her beloved Little Nana for this deliciously crisp pastry recipe.