I’m going to show you how to make mince pies. And this is a great one because even if you’re rubbish at cooking it doesn’t matter because this is just simply a bit of assembly. You can go out and buy some bought pastry it’s an absolute doddle. They’ll love you for the whole of Christmas. So how to cook mince pies.
Well as part of my Christmas season I wanted to show you how simple it was to make your own mince pies. It’s quite satisfying. And it is lovely if you can take them round to someone and say, ‘Look what we made.’ And, by the way, it’s fine to use bought pastry.
I’ve got all my ingredients here. So some dried mixed fruit which this time of year you can get from any supermarket. Some chopped apricots which I’ve actually chopped a little bit more. I’ve got some apricot jam so I’m going to put that in. And you can just do this to taste. Demerara sugar – that goes in there. Some mixed spice which is really going to get the thing going. I’ve got some zest of orange. It’s actually quite nice to put some orange juice in if you like. I’m actually going to put a little bit of brandy in there and just give that a really good mix up.
And you can keep this, funnily enough, in a jar for – until next year. I mean it lasts forever. Now, in actual fact, it’s looking a little bit, a little bit watery so I’m just going to add a bit more fruit. Notice I didn’t put all the dried mixed fruit in to begin with, for that very reason. And I think we’ll just put a little bit more sugar in just to make it less moist.
And that is how simple it is to make your own mincemeat. And the great thing about it is you can keep tasting it. You’ve got complete control over what it is ultimately going to taste like. So we’ll set that to one side for a moment. And then underneath I’ve just got a little bit of pastry rather that I made earlier on. Like I said, it’s absolutely fine. So we’re just going to roll out . . .
Now on a separate thing just for the top I cut out a little star. The way I did it, which is nice little tip here, is I went onto Google, got a picture of a star, printed it off and then used it as a stencil. And that way they’re all quite uniform.
Now what I’m going to do is put this into the tin. So I’m just going to cut a big circle. I’m not going to win any prizes for geometry doing that. But let’s just get that off the workbench. That’s going to go straight into here. In fact I’m just going to make it a bit smaller so they won’t be too deep. And we’ve got our nice little star to go on. So that goes in like that.
And now I’m just going to put a bit of the mincemeat filling in. That goes in. And the star goes on top. And then finally I’ve just got a little bit of egg yolk here and I’m going to brush the top like that. And those will then go in the oven for 20/25 minutes something like that.
I think the big tip is take them out just put them on a bakery rack and leave them for 15/20 minutes. Don’t touch them. What will happen is they’ll shrink and then, using a spoon, you’ll be able to get them out much easier. If you try and get them out immediately they’re just going to disintegrate. Believe you me, I know from bitter, bitter, bitter experience. Right. We’re going to stick those in the oven now.
So those mince pies that we put in, they’ll be ready. So I’m going to get them out the oven. Here we go. Look at that. Christmas. And there you have gorgeous, festive mince pies made by yourself.
Somebody who’s left a review on either Google or Facebook wins a free pasta machine so let’s see who it is. Oh, it’s Kenny Fleming [sounds like 0:04:47]. Thank you, Kenny. That will be off in the post. You’ll probably get that in the New Year because Santa’s a bit busy at the moment.
Next time, in fact in the New Year, I’m going to show you a lovely winter dish. We’re going to be doing a pheasant casserole.
In the meantime, have a very happy Christmas and a very happy New Year to you.
