My Quick and Easy Christmas Mince Pies

So one of my favourite parks of Christmas is all the baking!! Sadly this was the first year in many mum and me didn’t make a Christmas cake or Christmas Pudding, although it’s been talked about. So on Saturday night , in a pre X-Factor boredom we decided to do a bit of baking, to the extreme delight of the 2 boys.

So with a quick pop out to tescos thanks to my dear boyfriend , and a quick pitstop for some wine, we were (or so we thought ) ready. Thanks to the late and possibly wine induced decision to make some mince pies we quickly discovered the pastry was frozen solid!!

So after a good 2 hours we paused X-Factor and began baking!! This recipe may not seem like so much of a “recipe” but I’m still trying to perfect my own Mince recipe!!

For this you will need

• A rolling pin
• Pastry cutters- 2 sizes
• A fork
• Muffin Trays- I favour Jamie Oliver’s. They are plastic and you can pop out your baked good so easily
• Flour
• Puff Pastry
• Shop bought mince
• Honey
• Sugar
• Butter-melted

Step one:

Roll out your pastry- be warned when defrosted it is extremely broken and bitty. But after a lot of love and care it can be rolled into a perfect pastry square, or if your me and Un-identifiable shape!! Make sure to cover both your surface, hands, rolling pin and pastry with flour to make sure nothing sticks or else you will be made with one mess.

Use your larger pastry cutters to cut out the bases of your pies and the smaller ones for the tops. Put aside for now

Step 2:

Use the melted butter to generously coat your baking trays. This will ensure your pastry doesn’t get stuck and break when your trying to take it out.

Step 3:
 Now this step is optional, I usually put all of my Mince Meat, it really isn’t mince meat it’s fruit. It took me a while to learn this, into a bowl and add a nice amount of honey and sugar. All depends on your own preferences. I do this purely just to make it stickier and tastier. It’s amazing.

Step 4:
Place your bigger cut pastry circles into the buttered muffin trays , and spoon in your mince! Don’t fill it all the way to the top just keep a tiny bit. Once you’ve done this you can pop on the small circles as a lid, use your fork to pinch the edges , this is both decorative and too keep them perfect in the oven. I like to put a butter glaze on the top just so it has a nice golden colour and sprinkle a tiny bit of sugar.

Step 5:

Bake for 15 mins at 220 degrees. Make sure you keep an eye on them so they don’t burn. When there nice and golden remove from the oven and leave to cool.

Step 6:
Serve with sugar and cream and EAT!!!!!! You will thank me once your done;) I love how rustic these look. All of the honey and mince seeps out during the cooking process and makes them even stickier and gooey!!!!:)

Hope you all enjoy!! I will try and perfect a homemade mince recipe soon! Also I do apologies the pictures aren’t amazing! I was using my iPhone and “May” have had a bit of wine…. But it was a Saturday I’m allowed;).

Also, for those fitness savy or even to track the post Christmas weight loss, there is an amazing Mince Pie Calculator created by Living Streets, which is a charity that works to create  safe, attractive and enjoyable streets for people to walk on. The calculator can track how many calories in relation to the amount of mince pies you eat. I may start after christmas day. Want a bit of festive food without the guilt!! 

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