Mince pies The Pink Whisk way – with zesty pastry, mince pies were meant to be individual, sticky, oozy, bursting with mincemeat and a good dusting of icing sugar to hide the imperfections!
My mince pies are like my scones, very definitely homemade – I have never striven for looks of perfection with these beauties – uneven tops and sticky bits of mincemeat that ooze over the edge are everything I like in a mince pie – if you’re after neat and precision perfection you won’t find it here!
Ingredients:
225g plain flour
100g butter, cold diced
25g caster sugar
zest and juice of one orange
1 x jar of mincemeat
Icing sugar to dust
Makes 8 mincepies
In a large bowl place the flour and the cold diced butter.
Rub the butter into the flour using your fingertips or a pastry blender until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Add the sugar and the zest of the orange and stir through until combined.
Add the orange juice a little at a time and work with a knife to form a dough, if you run out of juice add a little cold water.
When the dough is coming together, tip it out onto your worksurface and work gently into a smooth pastry.
Wrap the pastry in clingfilm and allow to chill in the fridge for 30 minutes to let it rest.Preheat the oven to 180c Fan/200c/Gas Mark 6.Roll out on a well floured surface. Keep turning the pastry around and lift it using the flat removable base from a cake or flan tin – that way you can make sure it isn’t sticking. Roll out to approx 3mm thick.
It’s important to have a good deep filled mince pie in my book otherwise you feel cheated with just a mouthful of pastry – key to that is a good deep tin!
Cut out large circles of pastry and use to line your well greased tin, ease the pastry in gently. If the pastry tears or splits as you work don’t worry just stick it back together with your fingers. If you have long elegant nails you may find it easier to press in with a ball of pastry instead of your fingertips.
Fill with a good spoonful of mincemeat.
Cut out smaller circles for the tops. With your fingertip wet the top of the base pastry case with water, place the top on and gently ease the two together. With a sharp knife add two slits to the tops to allow the steam to escape.
Alternatively cut out smaller pastry star and place on top of the mincemeat.
Another favourite of mine is to top with chopped hazelnuts!
Brush the tops with a little milk to glaze and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until golden brown. Cool for ten minutes in the tray and then ease each pie out with the help of a knife and allow to cool on a wire rack.Dust with icing sugar and serve.
Ruth Clemens, Baker Extraordinaire
Finalist on BBC2 The Great British Bake Off
Brilliant Ruth, i shall be trying your pasty recipe for my next batch of mince pies
I've never made pastry with orange juice before – it sounds lovely.
Do you put anything into the muffin holes to stop the pastry sticking? I used my muffin time a few years ago and ended up throwing the mince pies away as they stuck to the tin?
I'm liking the idea of the orange zest in the pastry… I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to my mince pies usually, but my Mum's crumble topped ones are pretty special (especially with a big glass of mulled wine on the side)! I might get around to blogging them this year…
The pastry recipe sounds lovely – will give that a go, x
Loving your tips – the use of the tin bottom as a scraper/lifter is so cunning!
A mincemeat recipe would be good too as I always find supermarket mincemeat disgustingly vinegary…
Great idea with the Pastry Ruth, will definately try this. I add a little Cointreau to the jar of mincemeat ;>)
Aileen
Caroline, just grease them well with butter and they should come out just fine x
Now I generally buy fresh pastry (not the frozen stuff) but this idea of adding the orange is such a brilliant idea that I shall try making my own. But I shall make one large plated mince pie.
And I absolutely love Aileen's idea of adding Cointreau to the mincemeat – just knew I needed a bottle.
Many thanks Ruth and Aileen
From Glo
Does adding egg yolk make the pastry hard or softer? My pastry sometimes goes hard the shop bought ones are like shortbread which i love. How do they get them so soft and crumble any ideas. I will try your recipe to see. Thanks for all the lovely recipes. Maria
Yum!
I'm just getting ready to make mine next week as gifts so your recipe was great timing! One thing, how long will mince pies keep as I would like to give them as gifts? Thank you
Hi Liz – personally I don't think mince pies keep well as the pastry tends to get a bit limp, if making in advance I would let them cooll and then freeze them straight away and then just defrost when you need them x
Hi Ruth, wasn't sure if freezing would work but thanks for getting back to me. Now I'm good to go. Will be making your eggnog and gingerbread cupcakes for the teachers next week, they sound fab!
See i forgot to grease my tin the other day and had to ease them out with a spoon, they survived but never thought about the grease, duh!
Hiya! I really love this blog and all the recipes. Especially all the typical British ones. I'm from Austria and it's pretty hard to get good British recipes over here. Every now and then I get problems though, because I can't get all the ingridients I'd need in supermarkets over here. This time the (fairly big) problem is mince meat – can I make it myself? What's in it anyway? I don't have a clue…
Many greetings to the island!!
Hi Kerstin – yes you can make mincemeat yourself there's loads of recipes out there – try this one for starters! http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/13377/traditional-mincemeat
xx
Made a trial batch yesterday. What can I say?….. yum yum. The orange pastry is delicious. Another batch planned for christmas day x
Thank you for the recipes, after doing 2 batches of mince pies (one with pate sablee and one following Delia's recipe), I think I might make these soon!
Thanks for the recipes. Your mince pies were really easy to make. Can't wait to try them. Also tried you Chocolate and banana loaf to use up some bananas. Great and easy to make.
Hi Ruth,
I love your blog and very much admired your baking skills in the Bake-Off.
I made mince pies this week and much to my disgust, the mince bubbled up and flowed out over the sides of the pastry case. I used a muffin tin and had stars as lids on one lot and fully closed mince pies in another lot. The fully closed ones were a bit better but also leaked. Have you any tips to avoid leaking? Is it a tin related issue or an oven temp problem I wonder? Any ideas? Cath
christmas eve…..and house filled with orange aroma, cant wait to give these a taste, i hope i make them as good as you
Just made these this afternoon in time for FC and they have got down a treat. Very nice.
To avoid mince pies leaking you shouldn't over fill them with mincemeat, remember that the pastry will shrink when cooked.
If putting lids on seal the edges of the pastry together well to stop them splitting apart and the mincemeat escaping whilst cooking x
Another winner thanks Ruth they worked a treat
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Hi Ruth,
Just would like to know if you could help me with a recipe for a chocolate swiss roll.
All the recipes are for a smaller sized tin, the tin size of mine is 15×10.
Would be so grateful if you could help me please?
Janet
Hi Janet – I Haven’t a recipe for a chocolate swiss roll sorry! If your tin is bigger than your recipe try increasing the quantities by 25-50% so that you have enough mixture x
Do you make your own mince Ruth?
I have to say I don’t I like robertsons mincemeat but Waitrose do some lovely ones too (I like the cranberry and port version they sell) xx