All Butter Pastry Mince Pies
Its all about the pastry
How do you like your mince pies? Warm with brandy butter? Piping hot with maybe a little Baileys custard to give it that Christmas feel? What about cold with cheese? Let me know
The only thing I know for sure about mince pies is that they taste better if they have an all butter pastry. Of course I’m going to say that mine is the ultimate mince pie recipe, I mean I’d be daft to say otherwise.
This year I was given some Lakeland Artisan Fruit Rum Liqueur, so of course I had to play around with it. I made them a Spiced Rum Pantone bread pudding, with Spiced Rum custard, of course. You can see that recipe on their web site along with my latest guest blog.
After I’d made, and drunk, a few, ok, quite a few spiced rum drinks, don’t judge me, I still had a little left. Just enough to add a little more oomph to my all butter pastry mince pie recipe. So that’s what I did.
If you don’t want to add the Spiced Rum, jut use your own sweet mince recipe. Or do as I did and buy a nice one from your favourite shop. My favourite shops always seem to Aldi & Lidl . If you’re lucky enough to have any Christmas markets near you, buy local. Cant beat a traditional recipe.
Buy your favourite sweet minced and you can always whoosh it up !
When I play around with food, there is one role that is the most important and probably the most sought after, the chief taster.
Even though I’ve had a lot of candidates put themselves forward for this, it mostly falls to my three biggest fans, the Lovely Mr G and my two children. That’s if they’re around.
As Mr G is the one who comes home to me each night, he’s the one who has the fortune (or miss-fortune) to try all of my cooking successes. Ok, I hear you all shouting. You’re right, he’s also the poor soul who tries all of my failures too.
If I’m developing a recipe or adapting one, it doesn’t usually happen first time, oh no. There are a lot of mistakes made. Burnt bits being scraped off the edges of pans. Mouths stinging from adding a touch too much chilli and probably tears because I’m afraid to miss the deadline. Mr G is the one who is willing to taste the fails to be rewarded with the successes.
Few successes straight from the oven .
This recipe is a showcase for the all butter pastry. This is the perfect pastry for anything sweet such as Pies or tarts. Let your imagination run wild.
If you’d like to see how to make these mince pies , go subscribe, like and click over to my YouTube channel Lee & The Sweet Life and have some fun while you’re cooking.
Lee & The Sweet Life - You Tube
What You Need
350g Plain Flour
100g Castor Sugar
250g Butter - I use salted butter
Icing sugar to dust and roll out pastry
Egg - for the egg wash
822g Sweet mince meat
Rind of 2 oranges
50ml Lakeland Artisan Fruit Spiced Rum - Optional
Foil tart cases
Appropriate size cutter
How Its Done
Place the flour and castor sugar into a food processor . Cut the butter into small chunks, and feed them through the top of the processor one at a time. Once all the butter is in, let the machine run until the mixture comes together to form the pastry.
Wrap the pastry in cling film and leave it aside or in the fridge for 10-15 minutes.
While the pastry is resting, put your mice meat into a bowl . Add the orange zest and the Spiced rum if your using it. Mix it well and let it sit while you roll the pastry out.
Place your empty foil cases onto a lined baking tray and set the tray aside.
Using icing sugar instead of flour, roll your pastry out and cut using a round cutter. Place 1 round of pastry onto the bottom of your cases.
Put a good sized spoon full of the sweet mincemeat mixture onto the bottom pastry . When they have all been filled, put the second round of pastry on top of the mince meat the as a lid.
Go around each mince pie and push the edges together to seal them .
Poke holes in the top of each pie with a fork.
Crack the egg into a cup and give it a bit of a stir with the fork. Using a pastry brush, cover each mince pie with the egg wash
place the tray with the pies in a pr4 heat4d oven of 180c. Start looking at them after 20 minutes. Cook until a lovely golden brown
Tip Box
Food Processor - Don’t be in a rush to feed the butter into the food processor. Slowly is good. When they are all in, don’t be in a rush to have them form the pastry This may take many minutes depending on how powerful your machine is, or how cold the ambient temperature.
Pastry - How do you know when the pastry is right? When you grab a ball in your hand and it sticks together - see how it looks on my YouTube channel .
Leave the pastry aside - How long to rest your pastry depends on the ambient temperature. If its a warm day , you may have to leave for a little longer.
Flavoured pastry - Add some extra orange zest to your pastry when all the ingredients are in the food processor
Cutter - I like a lot of pastry so i use a cutter thats a little bigger than my tart case - check it on my YouTube channel. Remember you’ll need two rounds cut out for each foil case - a top and a bottom.
Flavours - Don’t limit yourself to whooshing up the sweet mince meat with just the spiced rum. Use brandy or Irish cream . Let your mind go wild.
How many foil cases will i need? - That all depends on how thick you cut your pastry. I made 13 pies from one batch of pastry
Freeze - Freeze the cooked or uncooked mince pies for use later. The all butter pastry freezes really well too, so don’t waste any . Make sure all of these are defrosted all the way through before cooking and heated all the way through before serving.
Ovens - All oven may vary so after 20 minutes, watch them and don’t let them burn.
Don’t rush the pastry.
