The first of many Mince pies.

This week I started on what will undoubtedly be the first of many mince pies to be made over Christmas. My idea was that I'd be very organised, get a head start, make loads of mince pies and then freeze some so at any opportune moment over the holiday I could get some out the freezer and they would be ready! Well that was the plan any way, but like most of my plans to be organised it went straight out the window just a day after the Mince pies were baked.
This is because there's now just 2 left out of about 30 pies. I made the mistake of putting them near the boyfriend and taking some to work, so now I have to stock up on more ingredients and start again on my Christmas batches.

Any way here they are:

 Now one thing I've always believed is that you don't need allot of fancy equipment to bake, I mean they did without it years ago right? And for someone who loves to bake I have very little equipment. I didn't have a cookie cutter to cut the discs for these pies which wasn't an issue as I simply used the rim of an appropriately sized glass instead.

Now to make these mince pies I just used store bought mince meat as I believe that you can get some really tasty and good value mincemeat in the supermarkets that it really isn't worth the money effort making my own, Maybe I need to taste some homemade mincemeat to be convinced otherwise but until then I'll buy mine.

I simply made up a basic pastry recipe, cut out 24 discs then greased a shallow cupcake dish and placed 12 of the discs in. I then filled each with a teaspoon full of mincemeat and brushed around the edge with beaten egg before placing another disc on top. Then I crimped the edges of the pie together with a fork and brush the top with beaten egg and sprinkled a bit of granulated sugar on top. I baked these in the oven for about 20 mins at 180 deg C or until the pastry was golden brown. Then once cool I dusted the pies with icing sugar.

For my pastry I used

260g Plain flour
110g Butter

Rub these together until you have a sandy consistency then add a table spoon of water and then blend together. Repeat this until you have a smooth dough being careful not to add to much water. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and leave to rest for an hour before rolling on a floured surface.

And that's it!

Just a simple one for today but they're something that I end up making like a factory production line this time of the year as they go so fast. So fast in fact that boyfriend could wait a couple of minutes when the first batch came out the oven and ended up with a burnt chin from molten hot mincemeat. So remember they are tempting but leave them to cool! hehe!

Bye for now

Cupcake kris. xx