Mince Pies

I have never made my own mince pies before, but this year seemed as good a year as any to try it out! I didn't make my own mincemeat as I had left it too late to do it justice. Instead I used a cheap, pre-made jar of mince meat as a base, and then added my own stamp. To the basic mince meat, I added roughly chopped cherries and a large glug of Amaretto. I tasted it and although it was nice, the flavour was a little flat. When I started making my pies, the zhoushed mince meat had been maturing in the fridge for about a week. It had a really deep flavour with a hint of Bakewell Tart!

I decided that, for the purposes of learning by doing, I would make my own shortcrust pastry. This was quite a daunting task, I've never been very good at pastry, but I followed an American recipe which seemed to help. I find it much easier to work in cups as my scales are not very accurate! I followed Jamie Oliver's tip of putting my hands in cold water before rubbing in the butter to avoid the dreaded melting greasy mess and it worked like a charm. The recipe also called for chilled butter, but thanks to my other careful preparations, the room temperature butter worked fine. 

The pastry was indeed, very short and before I put it in the fridge to cool, I was worried that it hadn't come together properly and that I would end up with fragile, holy pies. I realise now the mistake I have made in the past with pastry! Pastry requires patience. It's so important no to go in, all guns blazing, as I had before. This is not a job to be rushed. In the past, I have even neglected to chill the pastry before rolling out and the pastry has ended up unmanageable and unwieldy. If I start baking more regularly (and if we get a bigger house!), I think I will invest in a granite board which I can chill in the fridge before working with the pastry. If patience is the number one rule, then keep it cold is number two. I chilled my hands again before rolling out, and handled the pastry as little as possible. 

The pastry rolled out beautifully, honestly it was perfect! The best pastry I have EVER made and I think my Nana will be proud when I take them round on Boxing Day. I have opted to make my pies on a flat tray. I used another Jamie Oliver technique which was meant to be for people who didn't have a pie baking tray, not for people like me who just can't be bothered faffing around with greasing each individual dip with butter!

Jamie's technique works for any size of pie. I made miniature pies, around 3 centimetres across. Although I have a lot of cooking and baking equipment, unfortunately that doesn't include round pastry cutters, so I had to improvise! For the size of pie I wanted to make, I used a glass. 

I cut out an even number of disks, and then put half aside. The remaining disks I rolled out so they were slightly thinner and slightly larger than the others. These would form the lids for the pies. Next I put a teaspoon of mince meat in the centre of the smaller disks. Any more and I suspect the filling would have burst out! The next step was moisten the edge with a little water, Mary Berry style with my finger! Then I covered the filling with the lids and sealed with the prongs of a fork. The next, and possibly most important thing (a fact I learned afterwards), was to cut a small slit in the top of each pie. When I took them out of the oven, the filling had burst out slightly through the top and I can't help thinking that had there been no air slit, I would have ended up with exploding pies! I gave the pies an egg wash and sprinkled a little sugar over the top for sweetness as the pastry was a savoury shortcrust.

They looked quite uniform, but rustic and I really liked the fact that they didn't look like shop bought pies. I wanted them to look home made.

Adjudicator's Verdict - 7/10 - Nicely cooked and enjoyed the flavour 

My Observations - 6/10 - A good bake, crunchy pastry which worked, but not sweet enough. Next time I will try doing a sweet shortcrust pastry. Also there wasn't much of a sheen which was a shame.