Pinch punch first of the month!
Hurrah it's officially December and therefore totally 100% acceptable to be revelling in Christmas cheer and festive treats which means one thing and one thing only - Mince pies!
One of my absolute favourite things about December and the general ticking down to Christmas day is all the yummy wintery goodies that start cropping up in all the shops. Gingerbread flavoured anything (especially in hot drinks), cranberries suddenly appearing in every sandwich and especially all the mince pies!
With that in mind one blustery evening I coasted my best friend Sophie round (it didn't take that much convincing) to make up a batch of easy peasy mince pies. Rudolf apron non optional.
The reason these are easy peasy is you basically just have to buy the ingredients and your 90% of the way there. My kind of cooking!
You are going to need:
2 jars of matured mince meat (Muma Chester chose Sainsburys own and i can vouch it is a winner)
1 packet of dessert pastry
1 packet of short crust pastry
1 egg
flour
butter
baking trays
cookie cutters in a variety of shapes and sizes
mulled wine (optional)
Get your baking trays and grease them up with a bit of butter, sprinkle some flour on top so that the pastry doesn't stick.
For the smaller baking trays we took a conker sized amount of pastry into a ball and used what can only be described as a tiny rolling pin to mould the pastry in to a perfect little pie base.
For the larger trays we used a large sized cookie cutter and simply placed they in the trays and gently moulded them with our hands.
Once the moulds were ready we added the mince meat - as always more is more...
We topped them off by cutting hearts and stars in the short crust pastry and placing them on top. Added a splash of egg yolk and popped them in the fan oven at 180 degrees C.
We had to…
Now relax for 15-20 minutes - I would highly recommend a cup or two of mulled wine to past the time. Ours was ready made (again easy peasy) so all we did is warm it up in a large saucepan and added some sliced orange.
20 minutes and a cup or two later and what you end up with is gorgeous golden crusted mince pies which smell and taste scrumptious. Leave them to cool for 5 minutes before taking them out of the tins and place them on a cooling tray.
I ate a good few while they were still piping hot as I couldn't resist but then packed the rest away and took them to share at work - needless to say that went down a treat!
Hurrah it's officially December and therefore totally 100% acceptable to be revelling in Christmas cheer and festive treats which means one thing and one thing only - Mince pies!
One of my absolute favourite things about December and the general ticking down to Christmas day is all the yummy wintery goodies that start cropping up in all the shops. Gingerbread flavoured anything (especially in hot drinks), cranberries suddenly appearing in every sandwich and especially all the mince pies!
With that in mind one blustery evening I coasted my best friend Sophie round (it didn't take that much convincing) to make up a batch of easy peasy mince pies. Rudolf apron non optional.
The reason these are easy peasy is you basically just have to buy the ingredients and your 90% of the way there. My kind of cooking!
You are going to need:
2 jars of matured mince meat (Muma Chester chose Sainsburys own and i can vouch it is a winner)
1 packet of dessert pastry
1 packet of short crust pastry
1 egg
flour
butter
baking trays
cookie cutters in a variety of shapes and sizes
mulled wine (optional)
Get your baking trays and grease them up with a bit of butter, sprinkle some flour on top so that the pastry doesn't stick.
For the smaller baking trays we took a conker sized amount of pastry into a ball and used what can only be described as a tiny rolling pin to mould the pastry in to a perfect little pie base.
For the larger trays we used a large sized cookie cutter and simply placed they in the trays and gently moulded them with our hands.
Once the moulds were ready we added the mince meat - as always more is more...
We had to…
Now relax for 15-20 minutes - I would highly recommend a cup or two of mulled wine to past the time. Ours was ready made (again easy peasy) so all we did is warm it up in a large saucepan and added some sliced orange.
20 minutes and a cup or two later and what you end up with is gorgeous golden crusted mince pies which smell and taste scrumptious. Leave them to cool for 5 minutes before taking them out of the tins and place them on a cooling tray.
I ate a good few while they were still piping hot as I couldn't resist but then packed the rest away and took them to share at work - needless to say that went down a treat!
x
They look delicious!!xx
ReplyDeleteThank you! They really were :) xx
ReplyDelete