Mini mince pies
By Dave · Cakes · 20th December 2010 These are officially the best mince pies ever, courtesy of Maria (www.bakewithmaria.com).
Ingredients
- 225g cold unsalted butter
- 350g "OO" plain flour
- 75g caster sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 280g (1 jar) of mincemeat, or homemade (I like to add a good amount of rum to the mincemeat; this is optional)
- 1 small egg, beaten
- Icing sugar to dust
Method
- Dice the butter and rub into the sifted flour
- Stir in the sugar and salt
- Combine pastry into a ball (don't add any water), kneading it briefly. This can seem tricky as the dough will be quite crumbly. It will end up firm like shortbread dough.
- Chill dough in fridge for around an hour
- Roll out the pastry fairly thin. This will be quite tricky as well! It will be crumbly, but it doesn't matter too much.
- Cut out circles to fit a mini muffin tray - push these into the muffin holes, being careful to patch up any cracks
- Spoon in the mincemeat
- Cut out smaller circles for lids and push these down gently (no egg is needed, they will stick anyway)
- Brush with beaten egg and make a small air hole in the middle of the lids
- Bake in the oven at 200 degrees for 15 minutes or so (until golden)
- Once cooked, leave in the tin for around 5 minutes. You should now find they are quite easy to remove
- Cool and then dust with icing sugar
Notes
The pastry is crumbly and can be fairly tricky to handle. Remember that these mince pies are forgiving! Simply push the pastry into the muffin tin to form a casing with no cracks and trust that they will turn out fine!