Simple Mince Pies
As we get ready for Christmas, there’s nothing nicer than to curl up in front of a blazing log fire and look back over another great year at Croan with an mince pie in hand. Feeling lazy this year, we simplified the process an bit and here’s how to turn out delicious mince pies with a fraction of the usual effort:
- Spread your mincement (a shop-bought jar is fine) over the surface of a rectangular sheet of puff pastry (shop bought frozen pastry works fine), leaving a 1 cm margin at the widest edge.
- Roll into a sausage a cut into 2cm slices. Lay the slices onto a baking sheet, allowing room for expansion, and bake at 180 degrees C for 30 minutes.
Easy peasy!
Niamh’s Mincemeat Recipe
If you’re feeling more ambitious, here’s our recipe for homemade mincemeat, but we warn you, if you make this once, you’ll find it hard to use the shop bought stuff ever again!
Ingredients
- Juice and zest of 2 oranges and 2 lemons
- 3 large cooking apples (we use Uncle John’s Cooker – a heritage variety), peeled and chopped into raisin-sized dice
- 375g raisins
- 200g currants
- 200g sultanas
- 200g suet
- 350g dark brown sugar
- 3 tsp. mixed spice
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- Half a grated nutmeg
Mix everything together in a roasting dish.
Cover lossely with foil and bake in a low ove (120 degrees C) for 2 hours, stirring now and again.
Store in sterilised jars.