Mince Pies
Gone are the days of being intimidated by pastry. It’s really not as finicky as everyone makes it out to be. In fact, it was actually worrying about it being so finicky that ever caused me any problems to begin with. Now I just press it all together with my bare hands, flatten it into a disk and I’m done with it. (By done with it, I mean ready to work with it, of course, since a flattened disk of unbaked pastry isn’t so appealing.)
This was the first year I made mincemeat from scratch and I wanted to utilize it in several ways, one of which is mince pies. Mincemeat Strudel is also on the menu. Who knows what else I’ll come up with. Anyway, in the interest of having leftover mincemeat after both of these recipes, I only made a half batch of mince pies and saved the remaining dough for a sort of tarte.
This crust goes the all butter route and has the addition of clementine zest and almonds to maximize flavor over flakiness. It also keeps it a bit more structurally sound, I think, which is useful when you’re packing them into tins for a while. If you want a flakier crust, substitute a quarter to half of the butter for lard or shortening, and nix the almonds in favor of pastry flour, and you’ll achieve what you’re after.
Just for my buddy Simon, I’ve included a quick recipe for hard sauce as well, because that’s how he likes it.
- 1 3/4 cup (225g) all-purpose flour, sifted
- 60g ground almonds
- 1/4 cup (60g) sugar
- 2 clementines, zested
- pinch of salt
- 1/2 cup (120g) unsalted butter, chilled and diced
- 1 egg yolk
- SQ ice water
- 250g (8.8 ounces) Mincemeat
- Combine the flour, almonds, sugar, clementine zest and salt in a large bowl. Cut the butter into the mixture using a fork or a pastry blender until all the butter is covered with flour and the mixture appears somewhat mealy.
- Stir in the egg yolk and a teaspoon of ice water, then grab it with your hands. If the dough holds together instead of crumbling apart, you’re good to go. Otherwise, add an additional teaspoon of ice water, mixing it in with your fingers, until you can press the dough into a cohesive mass and it does not fall apart.
- Divide the dough into two and press each into a disk between sheets of plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least an hour to thoroughly chill.
- After an hour, preheat your oven to 400 degrees with the rack positioned in the center.
- Lightly dust a work surface and roll out one of the pastry disks to approximately 1/8″ thickness. Cut out twelve 3″ circles from the dough and lightly press into a shallow muffin tin.
- Roll the remaining pastry out to 1/8″ thickness as well and cut out twelve 3″ circles with a fluted cutter for the lids.
- Divide the mincemeat between the twelve tarts, then lightly press each pastry lid onto the top of each. Brush with a beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar, if you wish, then cut two slits into the top to allow steam to escape.
- Bake until golden brown, about 12-15 minutes, then remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before removing from the tin and cooling completely on a wire rack.
- Dust the cooled mince pies with icing sugar and eat as is, or serve warmed with hard sauce.
To make hard sauce (which is basically alcohol-infused icing), cream together 1 stick of room temperature unsalted butter with 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar and an ounce of brandy, rum or whiskey.
This pastry recipe is adapted from BBC Food.
Yum, mincemeat and hard sauce. Since you mentioned Simon at the beginning of the post, i felt compelled to share the hard sauce recipe that we grew up with, as it differs from the one you posted:
Hard Sauce
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup berry sugar
1 egg white
1/4 cup brandy
1 tsp vanilla
Cream butter and sugar, add egg white and blend well (2-3 minutes). Slowly dribble in brandy as you continue to beat. Add vanilla.
I like this recipe because the berry sugar gives it a bit of texture, differentiating it more from a liquor-infused buttercream icing. The egg white also makes it a bit fluffier, and while some shy away from recipes using uncooked egg, it’s never bothered me.
It may be a bit late for this season’s baking, but I urge you to give this one a try if you chose to make some next year.
Thanks! What is this “berry sugar” you speak of? Caster sugar or fructose?
I think it is caster sugar, or “superfine” sugar. Basically a finer-grained granulated sugar.