Grandma's Mince Pies

Mum's Mince Pies with a Decorative Topping

Right, now that we have that over with. 

Xmas Mince Pie Pastry Recipe

Dry Ingredients 

225 grams cake flour or all-purpose flour (½ pound)

½ teaspoon salt 

½ teaspoon baking powder

Butter and/or lard

85 grams butter (3 ounces)

57 grams lard (2 ounces)

*if you can't manage lard, then 5 ounces of butter or 143g of butter will do. 

Wet ingredients 

10 grams castor sugar (1 Imperial Dessertpoon or 2 British teaspoons or 2.5 US teaspoons)

Yolk of one egg

3 Tablespoons iced water **

** add the iced water sparingly

Pre-heat oven to 200 °C, 400 °F, gas mark 6\

Sift together dry ingredients. Ensure they are evenly distributed. I tend to use my grandmother's old sieve

All dry ingredients should be well-sieved and evenly distributed, especially when it comes to pastries 

The sieve is also a great distraction for little hands, and it keeps the children happy too, particularly when there is bitter contestation occurring around the baking area:

Sieving the flour is a perfect job for little hands 

Take cold butter (not frozen) and grate it. That's right, through the largest grater hole in your cheese grater. It works like a charm. 

With cold, clean, dry hands, rub in shortening (i.e., the butter and lard, or just the butter) until it is well-distributed. Do note, it is going to soften in your hands. It is supposed to. In the end, you should have something that resembles dry, yellow breadcrumbs. 

Pop into freezer. For 20 minutes. Trust me, it works. 

Take out freezer, and then, very gradually, start to work in the wet ingredients. 

Beat ice-cold water with egg yolk and castor sugar. Make sure to leave a little aside for the topping. 

Add to dry ingredients one tablespoon at a time, working gently. 

Stop adding wet ingredients before it even begins to adhere: patience, with pasty, is everything. You do not want to overwork your pastry, or have it too wet - as with time, you simply can't go backwards and recover, you must do it once, deftly and gently, and then stop. 

Place dough in fridge for twenty minutes to rest. Some advocate wrapping in clingfilm, I try and avoid all unnecessary use of plastic, where possible, so tend to put it in a container, or cover with a towel to keep it from drying out. 

Roll out and cut into tops and bottoms - see below for some ideas. 

Glaze top with a little of the egg and sugar mixture.

OK, here's where it gets to be fun: when it says castor sugar, I figured plain old white was simply boring. We had food colouring gel (essential for rolled fondant and marzipan modelling) so felt it would be perfectly possible to dye the castor sugar various colours. Yes, I know you can get pre-coloured decorating sugar at specialist baking stores, but this way was much more fun. 

Red and green food colouring gel mixed with castor sugar, then left to dry out 

The red came out a bit more orange than I would have liked (fire-engine red was what it was meant to be) while the Xmas tree green lived up to its promise).  

For an extra bit of variety, I used the cookie cutter to cut the bottom of the mince-pie, and then stars to decorate the top.

We also experimented with other shapes (didn't work, not sharing them) and sprinkled some with green only, and some with red only:

Green castor sugar sprinkled on top of mince-pie; it adheres to the pastry given the egg yolk brushed on top 

However, I must admit infinitely preferred the mixed red and green sprinkles

Red and green sprinkles on mince pie 

You need to bake them in a hot oven for 20 minutes - they looked extremely festive in the oven:

Mince pies packed into the oven

And the colouring fared remarkably well, once baked:

The mince pies should never be more than a very light brown 

What can I say but: Happy eating!

Packaging is everything, particularly at Xmas time