Charlotte Pike

Mince pies really are a favourite festive treat, and miles apart from any thing shop bought. If you are worried about making pastry from scratch, fear not. I urge you to give it a go. I often make my own mincemeat filling, but this template recipe will work well with shop bought or homemade. As always, try and fine the best quality ingredients to make these with.

 

Mince pies

Makes 12-15 pies

 

Ingredients

200g plain flour

110g butter, cubed

1 egg yolk

Pinch of salt

3-4 tablespoons cold water

400g mince meat

You’ll also need one beaten egg as your egg wash.

 

Method 

Place the flour and butter into a food processor and whizz until the mixture resembles fine sand. Add the egg yolk and salt, and 2 tablespoons of water. Whizz again until it forms a stiff, firm mixture. Add the remaining water as needed – remember that too much water will make the pastry too sticky.

Cover the pastry with cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for a minimum of 15 minutes or better still 30 minutes.

Once the pastry is made and chilled, preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/ Gas Mark 3

Roll out the pastry between two sheets of greaseproof paper. It needs to be about 3-4 mm thick, no more. It will puff up during the cooking process.

Cut out discs to form the base of your pies and carefully put into the tins. Add a teaspoon of mincemeat to each pastry base. Take care not to overfill. Either brush the rim of the pastry base with beaten egg and add a disc to firm a lid, or alternatively place a cut out shape on top of the mincemeat. Egg wash your top or pastry shape and bake for around 18-22 minutes until the pastry is lightly browned and firm.

Remove to cool on a wire tray, although they are delicious eaten warm.

This is one of my most-requested recipes. It works well with many other fruits – just use a similar weight of prepared fruit when assembling the crumble to achieve a nice balance of fruit and topping.

I particularly like the filling made from either apples, apples with some sort of berry (blackberry, raspberry or elderberry are especially good) and plums. Flavour-wise, it at its very best when eaten warm, so the fruit isn’t too molten, and the topping is buttery and crisp. I sincerely hope you’ll enjoy this recipe as much as my family and I do.

 

Apple and Blackberry Oat Crumble

 

Serves 6

 

Ingredients

For the filling

900g cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped into 2cm cubes

50g caster sugar

100g blackberries

For the topping

100g plain flour

100g chilled butter

50g light brown soft sugar

50g rolled oats

 

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/ 350F/ Gas Mark 4

Place the apples, sugar and blackberries in a baking dish and stir together to combine.

In a mixing bowl, add the flour and butter and rub together until it resembles breadcrumbs.

Stir in the sugar and oats and then sprinkle the crumble topping evenly over the fruit in the baking dish

Bake for 30-40 minutes until the crumble topping is golden brown and the fruit is tender and bubbling. Serve hot, warm or cold with cream, custard or ice cream.