Gingerbread Mince Pies

It's nearly Christmas!!! Well, okay...not really, but it is now December, meaning I can make Christmas related bakes without feeling a bit silly.

I made these yesterday (aka 1st December) and I know for sure I'll be making more batches in the run-up to Christmas - really simple mince pies, with a few twists. I use a special tin I bought from Lakeland, which is meant for making individual mini sandwich cakes - here is the link to the Lakeland page, and I've copied a picture of the tin below. I like using these as it means I can pack the pies full of mincemeat and keep the pastry nice and tin. You could instead use a deep muffin tin :)

I spiced the pastry with ginger and cinnamon to give a gingerbread feel and added chopped satsuma and apple to the mincemeat (which was storebought, but you could make your own - here's my recipe from quite a few years ago now) to freshen it up.

This made 12 mince pies.

Ingredients:

For the pastry:

• 380g (3 cups) plain flour
• 90g (6 tbsp) icing sugar
• 2/3 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp ground ginger
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 180g (9 tbsp) butter, chilled and cubed
• 2 egg yolk
• 4 tbsp water

For the filling:

• 1 x 400g good quality mincemeat (I used Tesco Finest, which was delicious!)
• 1 Braeburn (or similar) apple, roughly chopped
• 1 satsuma, peeled and roughly chopped

To finish:

• 1 egg
• Sprinkle of granulated sugar (around 2 tbsp)

Method:

1. Grease the mini sandwich cake tin or deep muffin tin with butter.

2. Sift together the flour and icing sugar into a large mixing bowl, then stir in the salt, ground ginger and cinnamon.

3. Add the butter and rub into the flour mixture, until the mix resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolks and water and bring the dough together into a ball. Take two-thirds and roll out between two layers of clingfilm until it is a few mm thick. Use a 10cm circular cutter to cut out circles, and gently press these into the tin. If there are any rips, use the spare dough to patch it up. 

4. Place the pastry in the fridge to firm up for around 20 minutes, whilst you prepare the filling.

5. Preheat the oven to 180c (160c)/430c/gas mark 6. 

6. Mix together the chopped apple, satsuma and mincemeat until well combined. Spoon into the moulds - you should get about 2 tbsp of filling into each pie. Place back in the fridge whilst you prepare the rest of the pastry.

7. Roll out the remaining third of pastry until it is a few mm thick. I used a small gingerbread man cutter to cut out little gingerbread men to top each pie. You could do this, or use another cutter like a star, heart, tree, or anything you want really - you could also just do a circle, but it the top is fully enclosed, you need to poke a small hole in the top of the pie to prevent bursting of the pie during cooking.

8. Top the pies with the toppers (gingerbread men, stars etc.). If you want, you can then cut thin strips of the spare dough and used this to line the top of each pie to get a neat edge. If you do this, gently press the strips to seal to the sides of each pie.

9. Beat the egg, and lightly brush over the top of each pie. Bake for around 15 minutes, or until the tops are nice and golden. Once out of the oven, sprinkle over the sugar. Leave to cool for around 10 minutes before taking out of the tins. These are amazing warm but also can be eaten at room temperature.

10. Enjoy!