I only tried my first ever mince pie last year; discovered that I like them. Tonight I'm having my first mince pie of the year for my night snack!
I've never made them, but I did make puff pastry and mincemeat swirls last year, and I made mince pie fairy cakes, which were delicious with custard.
We're one and the same here Smithy! This, to a tee
Must be brutally honest and say I've never tried Christmas pudding thus far. My Dad makes a huge Christmas cake for the festive season, covered in icing as thick as my fist. Stodgy and sickly as hell, but my god it don't half taste bad (in small slices)!!
I think you can get good bought ones nowadays but I hold my hand up and say that I make my own because my mom always does. I still don't think mine match up!
I've made Delia's mincemeat in the past, Nigella's Cranberry-Studded mincemeat is very good - different to the normal stuff but lovely in its own right. As is the pastry for her star-stopped mince pies - bound with the juice of an orange.
This year I've made the Ministry Of Food mincemeat recipe from 1945, obviously using veg suet (so more can eat the pies!).
And I'm not a housewife. I'm a 25 year old man. Haha.
delia's mincemeat recipe is my alltime favourite but i use veg suet. As for shop bought pies, I like Greggs mince pies, very nice pastry and the filling's good too.
People only eat them because they feel obliged to. If they actually tasted (genuinely) nice, they'd be on the shelves all year long, selling as well as cherry bakewells, apple pies or American muffins.
"It's Christmas therefore I must eat mince pies" isn't the most intelligent logic.
I prefer Lidl or Aldi's premium brands over Mr Kipling or other supermarket own brands.
I genuinely love mince pies, but I feel the way you do in regards to Christmas cake with that sickly sweet marzipan icing. Yuck. I'm not fond of Christmas pudding either, although I do like fruit cake.
I contemplated picking up a box of pies last week to put away for Christmas but the expiry date was Dec 18. I'll wait a week or two I guess. The Aldi premium ones are very nice, we bought some last year.
We've got a score chart going in my office. So far we've tried 5 different pies and the top scorer is Aldi mid range, I think they are 79p for six, really lovely.
Still to try Greggs yet, they are usually my favorites. I also like the mincemeat and custard pies from McDonalds - definitely not the healthiest but bloody lovely!
As you may have worked out, I certainly do love a mince pie 😁
I have made my own before, if you can call it that. I bought the pastry (shortcrust on the base and puff on the top) with luxury mincemeat from Tesco and a dribble of brandy in each. They were yummy.
Well, we are approaching that time of year again. The mince pies have appeared in the shops and who doesn't love a nice mince pie?
I adore mince pies but sadly the rest of my family don't . I would love to make my own but there really isn't any point. I normally treat myself to a pack over Christmas but I have to eat the lot and then wonder why I've put on pounds by January !
Just made my mince pies and use the same recipe every year and it's really easy.
Use two thirds butter to plain flour, so if you use 8 oz of plain flour use 6oz of butter, then half sugar to flour so 4 oz . Rub it all together and add an egg yolk.
You then have to kneed the pastry as it's like shortbread. It will take a bit of time to bring it all together so don't panic when it doesn't look like it will form a lump.
Don't attempt to roll it out as it will cause a sticky mess, instead pinch of a walnut sized piece and squash it in your hand to make a circle to fit your pudding tin. It's very forgiving so you can smooth it out if you make a hole in the pastry. Put in your mince meat and then pinch off more pastry and squash it in your hands to make a lid. Pinch it all around the edges to make a seal in the little pies.
When they are cooked (about twenty minutes 180 C ), you must leave them in the tin for ten minutes before you take them out as they are very crumbly and need to 'set' first.
You can easily make mincemeat yourself too. The bonus of this is you can put in the things you like. Put the things you have chosen in a pan with brown sugar, instead of suet you can just add some good knobs of butter and add a good swig of brandy. Boil it until it is thick and gooey . It's best if you can leave it in a jar for a couple of weeks, but to be honest I've used it straight away before and it's fine.
Just made my mince pies and use the same recipe every year and it's really easy.
Use two thirds butter to plain flour, so if you use 8 oz of plain flour use 6oz of butter, then half sugar to flour so 4 oz . Rub it all together and add an egg yolk.
You then have to kneed the pastry as it's like shortbread. It will take a bit of time to bring it all together so don't panic when it doesn't look like it will form a lump.
Don't attempt to roll it out as it will cause a sticky mess, instead pinch of a walnut sized piece and squash it in your hand to make a circle to fit your pudding tin. It's very forgiving so you can smooth it out if you make a hole in the pastry. Put in your mIince meat and then pinch off more pastry and squash it in your hands to make a lid. Pinch it all around the edges to make a seal in the little pies.
When they are cooked (about twenty minutes 180 C ), you must leave them in the tin for ten minutes before you take them out as they are very crumbly and need to 'set' first.
You can easily make mincemeat yourself too. The bonus of this is you can put in the things you like. Put the things you have chosen in a pan with brown sugar, instead of suet you can just add some good knobs of butter and add a good swig of brandy. Boil it until it is thick and gooey . It's best if you can leave it in a jar for a couple of weeks, but to be honest I've used it straight away before and it's fine.
My daughter and I made our own at the weekend. They tasted lovely but the pastry a little too crumbly; nice but difficult to eat without making a right old mess.
Our mixture wasn't dry or crumbly at all; we didn't roll it but if we had I imagine it would have been easy to work with as it was neither too dry or sticky. I was surprised it baked up so crumbly.
Reading around it seems it can be crumbly if the dough is too dry or because it had been overworked or handled. As it wasn't the former I assume I had over handled it so it's interesting you say you should kneed well. I'll try that. And have my butter a little less chilled.
I think maybe because my butter was so chilled it took more rubbing causing it to become oily. Who knows! I'm a terrible baker.
Ha. Forget plans to try baking another batch. My husband has just brought home Spar's own mince pies. They are gorgeous. Just the right amount of tang. Pastry not quite as nice as homemade but it's the mincemeat that makes it. No point making my own when Spar do such a nice one for peanuts.
My daughter and I made our own at the weekend. They tasted lovely but the pastry a little too crumbly; nice but difficult to eat without making a right old mess.
Our mixture wasn't dry or crumbly at all; we didn't roll it but if we had I imagine it would have been easy to work with as it was neither too dry or sticky. I was surprised it baked up so crumbly.
Reading around it seems it can be crumbly if the dough is too dry or because it had been overworked or handled. As it wasn't the former I assume I had over handled it so it's interesting you say you should kneed well. I'll try that. And have my butter a little less chilled.
I think maybe because my butter was so chilled it took more rubbing causing it to become oily. Who knows! I'm a terrible baker.
Remember it's only because this pastry is more like shortbread that you knead it. I don't think over handling normal pastry is a good thing. I wouldn't want to be the cause of a kitchen disaster
Remember it's only because this pastry is more like shortbread that you knead it. I don't think over handling normal pastry is a good thing. I wouldn't want to be the cause of a kitchen disaster
Rest assured I'm responsible for all my own kitchen disasters. All of them.
If I try them again I'll try your recipe - think we'd like a shortbready pastry. In meantime the Spar boyos will do.
You are wrong. I eat mince pies because I like them, not because I feel I have to at Christmas. If they were on the shelves all year round, I would buy them.
Aren't they available all year? I thought perhaps a limited range would be available.
I found a nice mince pie filling recipe last year, and modified it because we can't have alcohol and am trying to reduce our dairy intake. Makes about 4 dozen vegan mince pies (depending on how deep you like the filling).
450g cooking apples
225g vegan spread
340g raisins
340g sultanas
350g brown sugar
2 oranges
2 lemons
4tsp cinnamon
½tsp nutmeg
6 tbsp orange juice
Rough chop the apples with their peel on, and zest and juice the oranges and lemons. Mix these together with the vegan spread, dried fruit, sugar, and spices, and leave the mixture overnight in a covered container to marinade.
Bake in a deep tray covered with foil at 120°C for 2 hours. Stir a couple of times during the cooking, and then mix in the orange juice when it's cooling.
I'm not good at making pastry, so I use Jus-Rol shortcrust which works very well. Then I dust the tops with icing sugar. It's impossible to tell that there's no dairy in them, they're delicious.
Comments
Delicious :-)
We're one and the same here Smithy! This, to a tee
Must be brutally honest and say I've never tried Christmas pudding thus far. My Dad makes a huge Christmas cake for the festive season, covered in icing as thick as my fist. Stodgy and sickly as hell, but my god it don't half taste bad (in small slices)!!
delia's mincemeat recipe is my alltime favourite but i use veg suet. As for shop bought pies, I like Greggs mince pies, very nice pastry and the filling's good too.
I bought some for Christmas but have already had 2.
It's another thumbs up from me - very delicious!
I genuinely love mince pies, but I feel the way you do in regards to Christmas cake with that sickly sweet marzipan icing. Yuck. I'm not fond of Christmas pudding either, although I do like fruit cake.
I contemplated picking up a box of pies last week to put away for Christmas but the expiry date was Dec 18. I'll wait a week or two I guess. The Aldi premium ones are very nice, we bought some last year.
Still to try Greggs yet, they are usually my favorites. I also like the mincemeat and custard pies from McDonalds - definitely not the healthiest but bloody lovely!
As you may have worked out, I certainly do love a mince pie 😁
I have made my own before, if you can call it that. I bought the pastry (shortcrust on the base and puff on the top) with luxury mincemeat from Tesco and a dribble of brandy in each. They were yummy.
I adore mince pies but sadly the rest of my family don't
Use two thirds butter to plain flour, so if you use 8 oz of plain flour use 6oz of butter, then half sugar to flour so 4 oz . Rub it all together and add an egg yolk.
You then have to kneed the pastry as it's like shortbread. It will take a bit of time to bring it all together so don't panic when it doesn't look like it will form a lump.
Don't attempt to roll it out as it will cause a sticky mess, instead pinch of a walnut sized piece and squash it in your hand to make a circle to fit your pudding tin. It's very forgiving so you can smooth it out if you make a hole in the pastry. Put in your mince meat and then pinch off more pastry and squash it in your hands to make a lid. Pinch it all around the edges to make a seal in the little pies.
When they are cooked (about twenty minutes 180 C ), you must leave them in the tin for ten minutes before you take them out as they are very crumbly and need to 'set' first.
You can easily make mincemeat yourself too. The bonus of this is you can put in the things you like. Put the things you have chosen in a pan with brown sugar, instead of suet you can just add some good knobs of butter and add a good swig of brandy. Boil it until it is thick and gooey . It's best if you can leave it in a jar for a couple of weeks, but to be honest I've used it straight away before and it's fine.
They are good
Agree, I tried them the other month just to see. Expensive but flavours everywhere.
My favourite for now are either the standard waitrose ones.
Tried the standard Iceland ones the other day, you get what you pay for.
My daughter and I made our own at the weekend. They tasted lovely but the pastry a little too crumbly; nice but difficult to eat without making a right old mess.
Our mixture wasn't dry or crumbly at all; we didn't roll it but if we had I imagine it would have been easy to work with as it was neither too dry or sticky. I was surprised it baked up so crumbly.
Reading around it seems it can be crumbly if the dough is too dry or because it had been overworked or handled. As it wasn't the former I assume I had over handled it so it's interesting you say you should kneed well. I'll try that. And have my butter a little less chilled.
I think maybe because my butter was so chilled it took more rubbing causing it to become oily.
Remember it's only because this pastry is more like shortbread that you knead it. I don't think over handling normal pastry is a good thing. I wouldn't want to be the cause of a kitchen disaster
Rest assured I'm responsible for all my own kitchen disasters. All of them.
If I try them again I'll try your recipe - think we'd like a shortbready pastry. In meantime the Spar boyos will do.
Aren't they available all year? I thought perhaps a limited range would be available.
Nope, not at all normally.
I bought some in Asda back in the summer. Not in xmas packaging though.
They do sound v nice!!!:D
I will be making my own this year:D