Mince Pies

Submitted By:
wisey


Background Info:
There is nothing better than home made mince pies!

Try and leave the mince over night if you can, allow this in the preperation time.
These can be baked in batches if you don't have enough muffin trays. No. of Servings:
32 Preparation time:
15min(s) Course:
Other Cooking time:
25min(s) Cooking Instructions:
Filling
- Chop cherries into quaters (or smaller if you want to)
- Empty jar of mincemeat into a bowl and mix in cherries.
- Add 50ml of brandy and mix in well. Be careful not to add to much, mixture should not be runny.
- Cover and leave for a min of 4hours but ideally over night. No need to refrigerate unless you don't have a cool place to keep it.

The pastry: Make the pastry in 4 lots, this makes it easier.
- To make the pastry: Sieve 200g of plain flour into a bowl, add 100g of butter. Using your hands rub together until mixture is like breadcrumbs. Then add just enough cold water to mix to a dough that leaves the bowl clean. Place the ball of pastry on a plate and refrigerate.

Repeat this process 3 more times, each time adding the finshed dough to the plate in fridge, remember which order you put them in though.

Pre-heat oven to 220oc. Grease the muffin trays with butter.

Then take the first batch of pastry out of the fridge (leaving the other 3 in the fridge) and roll out until about 0.3mm thick. Using the circular cutter you should be able to cut 8 circles plus a star per circle, you may need to gather up the scraps and re-roll in order to this. Once you have done that keep the left over scrapes to one side this can be added to the scrapes of batch 2.

Repeat this with each batch of pastry, you should be able to get at least 32 mince pies. You may need to make one batch of mincepies then make a second batch depending how many muffin trays you have.

Gently press each pastry circle into the muffin trays, keeping the stars to one side. Using a teaspoon, add the filling to the pastry cases and finish by adding the star to the top.

Beat the egg in a ramikin or cup and brush over the top of each mince pie before baking.

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Swapping those on the top shelf with those in the middle shelf half way through. If not quite done they may need an extra 5 min but be careful you don't over do them.

Remove from tins and place on cooling racks.
Using a small sieve, sprinkle with icing sugar for a finishing touch.

1 user comment(s)

---

Submitted by Pandora @ 12:12pm Monday December 12, 2011
Made these at the weekend, added a little icing sugar and lemon rind to the pastry mix. Lovely crumbly pastry!!

---