RECIPE | MINCE PIES WITH SPICED ORANGE CRUMBLE

The recipe for these mince pies caught my eye when I was flicking through the Waitrose magazine one lunchtime, as a family we eat a lot of mince pies over the christmas period so it was one I knew would go down well! Mum and I batch bake about 200 mince pies every year, we tend to give them out as gifts and take them to events here and there throughout December, and we’d been thinking about trying something new this year so it was the perfect excuse to try these out.

They went down a treat!

Everyone really enjoyed them, warm and cold they tasted amazing. The crumble on the top added a really nice crunch to them too, I think the topping would work just as well on other fruits too alternative to the mincemeat. We followed the recipe for the pastry as well as the crumble although for ease we said we’d probably just make our usual, basic pastry recipe if we made them in bulk.

Ingredients: 225g plain flour 50g ground almonds 50g caster sugar 125g unsalted butter 1 vanilla pod (we used vanilla essence) 1 egg yolk 800g mincemeat

For the crumble: 75g plain flour 6tbsp demerara sugar 60g unsalted butter 1 orange, zest 1tsp mixed spice

Method:

• Make the pastry; Mix flour, almonds, caster sugar, butter and vanilla essence to form crumbs.
• Add the egg yolk and 1tbsp cold water, pulse together into a dough.
• Knead until smooth. (The recipe them says to chill the pastry for 30 mins, we didn’t!)
• Make the crumble topping; Mix the flour, demerara sugar, butter, orange zest and mixed spice to a chunky crumble mixture.
• Preheat the over to 200°c.
• Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured work top to about £1 thick & cut out 24 rings using a 8-9cm cutter. Press the rounds into the holes and lightly pinch the edges for a fluted effect.
• Divide the mincemeat between the cases (about 1 heaped tbsp in each) and scatter the crumble over the top.
• Bake for 15 minutes or until golden and crunchy.
• Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes before turning out and transferring to a wire rack.
• Once cool, dust with icing sugar.

The mince pies can be frozen for up to 3 months and re-heated when desired.

We don’t have a 8-9cm round cutter so used a jagged edge cookie cutter which meant we didn’t have to flute the edges. We did find that the pastry didn’t roll as easily as others but that may be because we didn’t chill it as instructed!

I’d definitely recommend this recipe to anyone to try, I’ll be making them again during the christmas period for sure.