Mince Pie Baklava

Merry Christmas everyone! Do you want a funky variation to the traditional mince pie? This year, I got experimental and tried baking a baklava with a mincemeat filling. The result was delicious - crisp layers of filo, with the honey stickiness of baklava and lovely almondy mincemeat layers. It was a bit hit, and much less fiddly than rolling out shortcrust pastry to the perfect thickness and worrying about soggy bottoms.

Mades one 20cm square baklava (cuts into 20-24 pieces)

Ingredients:

• 100g (7/8 cup) ground almonds
• 100g (2/3 cup) mixed nuts (walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, pistachios - whatever your preference really), chopped roughly
• 1 orange, zested
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 (411g) jar of mincemeat
• 1 pack (270g) of filo pastry, divided into two squares
• 100g (7 tbsp) butter, melted
• 150g (3/4 cup) granulated sugar
• 190ml (4/5 cup) water
• 6 tbsp honey
• 1 large piece of lemon peel

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180c (160c fan)/ 355f/ gas mark 4. Grease the base and sides of a 20cm square cake tin (I used a silicon-based one, but a standard cake tin should work fine, provided the sides are at least 5cm deep).

2. Make the mincemeat filling by tipping the mincemeat into a mixing bowl. Add the ground almonds, mixed nuts, orange zest and ground cinnamon and beat until the nuts are well distributed and you can no longer see any more ground almonds.

3. Place the first square of filo into the cake tin and brush over some of the melted butter (using a silicon/pastry brush). Cover with the next filo square, and brush butter on top of this layer. Repeat this layering until you have used half of the filo sheets (i.e. half of the pack of pastry).

4. Smooth over half of the mincemeat mixture as evenly as possible. Top with a filo square, brush with butter, then repeat this layering with 3 more sheets.

5. Add the rest of the mincemeat filling, and spread this over the pastry. Top with the next filo sheet, brush with butter and repeat this layering of filo sheets/butter until you have used up all of the pastry. Brush the top layer with butter.

6. Bake for 40-45 minutes, until golden and crisp.

7. Whilst baking, make the syrup by pouring the sugar and water into a saucepan. Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Once dissolved add the honey and lemon peel, and bring the mixture to the boil.

8. Boil the mixture for 10-15 minutes until it has thickened and is syrupy. Remove the lemon peel.

9. As soon as you take the baklava out of the oven, pour over the syrup, making sure to cover all of the baklava. Leave to cool.

10. Slice and enjoy!