Soups & Starters
Baking & Bread
Mince pies with a twist
This is a combination of two of my recipes, with the shortbread-style pastry and filling I used in Mini Mince Pies https://acooksplot.com/2018-12-21-mini-mince-pies and a topping adapted from Cinnamon and hazelnut crumble https://acooksplot.com/2019-08-20-cinnamon-and-hazelnut-crumble. I think the end result is a really rather lovely twist on traditional festive pies…
Ingredients
Makes 12
- FOR THE TOPPING:
- 125g plain flour
- 75g butter (straight from the fridge)
- 50g hazelnuts
- 75g demerara sugar
- half tsp mixed spice
- FOR THE PASTRY:
- 150g plain flour
- 50g caster sugar
- 110g cold butter, cut into cubes
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp milk
- FOR THE FILLING:
- 125g good-quality mincemeat
- half tbsp chopped stem ginger (from a jar)
- zest of half a lemon
- zest of half an orange
Method
First, make the topping by putting the butter, flour and hazelnuts in a food processor and blitzing until the nuts are roughly chopped. Stir in the demerara sugar and spice then pile into a food bag and freeze for an hour or two.
For the pastry, whizz the flour, sugar, cubes of butter, the egg and the milk together in a food processor until it starts to come together as a dough. Tip out onto a floured board and knead briefly into a ball, then cut in half, wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for 20 mins.
Mix together the mincemeat, ginger and citrus zest for the filling.
Roll the pastry out on a floured surface and cut out circles a little bigger than the holes of a tartlet tin, then use them to line the tin. Spoon a teaspoon of the mincemeat mixture into each case. Break up the frozen topping and scatter over the pies.
Bake in a preheated oven at 190C (fan oven) for 10-15 minutes until golden and bubbling.
A Cook's Plot Tip
These freeze well, so they can be made ahead of time and stashed away for Christmas