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YES people,
It's that magic time of year again where Emma starts getting Christmas fever and feels the urge to make mince pies! Last year I made excellent suet-free mince pies, compensating with butter. This year, I've gone one further and taken out the butter which I frankly feel is wholly unnecessary, instead ensuring that the mincemeat is kept moist and delicious thanks essentially to splashings of brandy. Let's face it, we all agree, anything splashed with tons of brandy can only be divine...
If you make your mincemeat now and let it macerate for a couple of weeks in a cool place, preferably an outdoor larder, they'll taste all the richer when you come to baking them, just in time for the first week of the Christmas period.
I don't do measuring, so the following ingredients were simply added in quantities that looked decent enough. The trick is to keep the moisture balance smooth and creamy: not liquid but not stodgy either. If the mixture gets too runny, add a touch more flour. If it gets to stodgy, throw in some more brandy!
Voilà!
Ingredients for AWESOME MINCE PIES 2009:
Dried figs, chopped
Candied Lemon peel and orange peel
Chopped walnuts
Sultanas or raisins
1 large chopped sweet cooking apple
two table spoons flour
Lots of French brandy (don't bother using expensive stuff, it'll be wasted in the cooking. Morrison's does a decent smallish bottle perfect for cooking at £5.60)
two large handfuls of soft brown sugar
2 large teaspoons of cinnamon
2 large teaspoons of allspice
1 teaspoon of nutmeg
1 teaspoon of ground ginger
1 pack shortcrust pastry (or make your own, even better if you have the time!)
Mix all the mincemeat ingredients together in a large bowl, cover with a cloth and leave for a couple of weeks in a cool, dark place, taking it out and turning it occasionally.
When it comes to baking them, roll your pastry out and cut 16 large circles and 16 smaller circles. Butter a cupcake baking tray, place your large circles in the spaces, fill with a generous spoonful of mincemeat then cover with a smaller circle of pastry and pinch together into a mince pie shape.
Bake the whole lot in a pre-heated over at gas mark 5 for 15-20 minutes until golden brown on top. Serve with a dusting of icing-sugar and cinammon, and some crème fraiche or brandy butter.
Enjoy with people you love, beside a log fire and accompanied by as many cheesy carols as you can bear. Alternatively, I find Andy Williams singing Sleigh Ride is always hilarious after a couple of eggnogs...
'Tis the Christmas season, we've hung up our stockings, the tree is heaving with baubles and bells, so far no one has sneaked a naughty chocolate from the advent calendar... Anyone who knows me knows I'm a Christmas fantatic and usually start getting excited around mid-october. Rather pathetic I know, but at least it means by the time the season is upon us I'm already pre-prepared. Today it was the turn of the mince pies. Since I can't get them in Italy and I forgot to bring some over from my last visit to the UK, I thought I'd make my own - they'll taste better I'm sure! I didn't use suet because a) doesn't exist in Italy, b) totally lardy, c) the vegetarian suet doesn't do it for me...
I made a simple shortcrust pastry and left it in the fridge for an hour while I prepared the mince meat.
Shortcrust pastry:
Plain Flour - 110 g (4 oz)
Fat - 25 g (1 oz) lard & 25 g (1 oz) Butter
Water - 1 tablespoon cold water
A pinch of salt
rub the butter and flour together until it resembles fine breadcrumbs, then add the water and knead until you get a smooth, maleable dough.
There are endless recipes for mincemeat each as yummy as the other, but the basics as far as I'm concerned are: dried fruits, chopped nuts, lots of christmas spices and lashings of brandy. Here's my actual recipes, with human measurements...
three large cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped up.
four handfuls of brown sugar, the softer the better.
handful of chopped almonds
two handfuls of chopped dried figs
zest of a large lemon
zest and juice of an orange
handful of chopped candied orange peel
two handfuls of raisins (or sultanas)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp crushed cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
5 tablespoons of brandy
YUM!
I started by cooking the apples in a pan with a handful of sugar and the crushed cloves. Once they were almost purée-like I took them off the heat. I added the chopped figs, chopped nuts and all the other ingredients and finally the brandy.
Then I let the whole lot sit for an hour whilst I rolled the dough and cut circles to make my pie shapes. I heated the oven to 200° (400 F, I think...).
Put your dough circles into your little tart moulds, fill each tart with about a tablespoon of mincemeat, cover with another circle of dough and press together to close the pie. You can cut shapes and top your pies with those as well if you're feeling creative, or make one HUGE mince pie with a lattice topping. As long as there's lashings of brandy in your mincemeat, you can't go wrong!
Bake for about 25 minutes, until they are golden brown and your kitchen smells like Santa's workshop, and VOILA! Mince pie a go-go!
Serve with brandy butter, clotted cream, runny cream, ice cream, icing sugar, whatever takes your fancy!
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