Mince Pies

Prep time - 30 minutes
Cook time - 20 minutes
Serves - 12
Difficulty - Easy

Ingredients

For the Pastry

150g The Butterworks Softer Butter

350g plain flour

50g icing sugar, sifted

2 egg yolks

Zest of one orange

For the mincemeat

150g The Butterworks Softer butter – grated

1 bramley apple peeled and grated

3 tbsp brandy

125g brown/demerara sugar

150g raisins

150g currants

75g chopped mixed peel

Seeds of 1 vanilla pod

1 tsp ground mixed spice

1 orange juice and zest

1 lemon, juice and zest

To glaze

2 eggs – beaten

50g demerara sugar

Method

  1. For the mincemeat – Thoroughly mix all of the ingredients for the mincemeat in a large bowl. Once mixed, cover with cling film and leave for 24 hours.

  2. For the pastry – cut the Softer butter into cubes and add into a large bowl, then add the sifted flour, as well as the icing sugar and orange zest. Mix these with your hands and rub together for a crumb consistency. Add 2-3 tablespoons of water and the egg yolks and mix together. Form the pastry into a ball and flatten. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes squeeze the pastry together gently until you have a soft ball of pastry. Flatten to a disc, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

  3. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4 and grease a muffin tin.

  4. Roll pastry out on a floured work surface until pastry is around 0.5cm thick and cut out 12 bases (around 10cm) with a pastry cutter and place them into the bottom of the muffin trays. Fill each one with 1 1/2 tbsp of mincemeat mixture and then cut out another 12 rounds of pastry (around 7cm each)

  5. Brush the edges of the pastry with a little beaten egg and press the lids on top to seal. Brush the lids with beaten egg too and sprinkle with extra casting sugar. Make a small slit on top of each pie with a knife. Transfer to the fridge and leave for 30 minutes.

  6. Bake the mince pies for 20-25 minutes or until golden-brown. Leave to cool before serving and dust with a little icing sugar.

  7. The extra mincemeat can be put into a jar and sealed to use at a later date.
  8. Enjoy !!