Christmas mince pies!

Merry Christmas everybody!

Yes I am aware that I am majorly backlogged - logged into the account and realised I had FOUR drafts which I never finished! But here I am to talk about mince pies on Christmas Day!

For the first time in 7 years, I am not in the UK during Christmas/Christmas time, and I have been going through some sort of weird reverse misery/homesickness all of December - people normally miss home during Christmas time but I am missing the UK instead! And there are valid reasons for that - when you have experienced European Christmas, Malaysian Christmas is just... dead. I haven't had a single cup of mulled wine this Christmas. Considering how hot it is in Malaysia all year round, mulled wine might not be the most comforting thing to have, but... mulled wine! And carol services - nothing says Christmas more than singing carols of Jesus' birth with a church choir, and having a cup of mulled wine with mince pies and stollen after!

I was close to spending Christmas this year without mince pies - and then they all came at once! A week before Christmas Eve a family friend hosted us to an evening of cheese and wine, and they had mince pies from Mark's and Spencer's! When I took my first bite of that mince pie, that was when I felt Christmas had truly begun. But I had also been planning to make mince pies - and had in fact already made my mincemeat which was ready to be filled into mince pies!

But, first of all, to many on this side of the world who are unfamiliar with mince pies... what exactly are they, you ask. Many people I have offered my mince pies to/mentioned mince pies to here in Malaysia have been very confused when I mention the word "mince", and then tell them that it's in fact got raisins and apples in it. And my fellow countrymen, you are not alone. The author of this article in the Economist, who is American, talks about how he confused them as pies filled with actual meat when he first bought them in the UK. So if you think of them as savoury at first, you are not to blame. No one is to blame but the English language.

Mince pies!

Mince pies are essentially sweet mini pies with a shortcrust pastry crust filled with a mixture of dried fruit and spices, known as mincemeat. I know, I know, minceMEAT??? Well, according to the trusty Wikipedia, they're called that because they, well, used to have, wait for it, MEAT in them! WHAT A SURPRISE. MAJOR PLOT TWIST, HASHTAG TOTALLY DID NOT SEE THAT COMING.

Apparently, the earliest mince pies were brought to Europe by the crusaders who were influenced by Middle Eastern type recipes, like cooking meat and fruit in the same dish. In those days, mince pies had minced meat, fruit, and spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg, as well as an animal fat called suet (Suet is actually part of my Chinese name, you can imagine the teasing I get from friends when they found out that suet is also a type of animal fat). By the Victorian era, mince pies had gotten a lot sweeter and the meat was omitted completely eventually. But apart from that, the mince pies have pretty much remained the same - some of the more traditional recipes still call for suet in their mincemeat. Spirits like brandy also were started to be used as a preservative in mincemeat in the 18th century, compared to the older versions where wine or vinegar was used.

Mincemeat, if made traditionally, is made weeks before Christmas so it has a chance to sit and let the flavours mingle, as well as let the fat and brandy do its thing of preserving the fruits. But if tight for time, you can also cook them over the stove, or, according to the recipe I followed, stick it in the oven for a couple hours on low heat. Mincemeat today normally has fruits like apples, raisins, sultanas, candied peel, currants, as well as lemon zest, cinnamon, nutmeg. All of that is mixed with some lemon juice (mine also called for orange juice), brown sugar, and whatever fat you are using, either actual suet, vegetarian suet, or even butter, which I used. I left the mincemeat mixture overnight and then baked it for 2 hours at 110 degrees Celsius. Finally, I added the brandy once the mincemeat had cooled. Baking it for 2 hours allowed the butter that I had mixed in to melt and fully coat the fruits.

Post heating. It's beginning to smell like Christmas...

Leaving the mincemeat out overnight was a point of dilemma for me, and that was largely because I live in a tropical climate. While I was slightly worried that the kitchen might be too hot for the mincemeat to sit in (probably not a major problem), I was more worried about pests such as ants and lizards being attracted by my mincemeat. There had been a lizard on the counter on the night I made my second batch of mincemeat. On the other hand, the fridge might have been too cold for it - the butter will also, not to mention, make the whole thing rock solid the next day. Although, I suspect, mincemeats aren't as temperature sensitive as I am making them out to be. But to be safe, I brought the whole bowl of mincemeat, covered in cling film, to my room where I sleep with the AC on. That's the closest I could get to European kitchen conditions in the winter I suppose.

The Great Mincemeat Sleepover

Mincemeat can usually be stored for up to a year in a cool, dark place, and in sterilised jars. Apart from mince pies, they're also supposedly good on apple pies. Some parts of the US have mince pies with cheddar cheese on Thanksgiving, but I wonder if having minceMEAT with cheddar cheese would sound as good, like how you would have cheese and chutney on a cracker. I don't know about you, but mincemeat, cheddar cheese and a cracker sounds like a fantastic combination to me. If you try it, let me know how it turns out.

The pie crust is pretty straightforward, any good old shortcrust pastry recipe would work great. I rubbed butter in flour, sugar, ground almond and a bit of salt, and then combined it all with an egg. The recipe called for a couple tablespoons of iced water too but I felt that I didn't need it after the egg. Left the dough to chill for an hour then rolled it out, cut shapes, stuck them in a muffin tin, filled it up with mincemeat and then finally baked them for about 20 minutes until golden brown.

Mince pies ready for the oven!

I haven't made pies/tarts before this, so I was still very much at beginner level with the whole shape cutting thing! Some of my pie crusts were out of shape and the pastry stars which I had put on top of the mincemeat were stretched really weirdly once baked. On the other hand, my auntie, who has been baking pretty much as long as she has lived, also made her own batch of mince pies, had almost 40 perfect looking ones. All of them shiny from the eggwash she had put on hers, and looking perfectly uniform while mine looked like a kid's art project. I suppose that this is a form of art project, and I am a kid. But grandmother was not impressed and was all WHY ARE THEY NOT NICE LIKE YOUR AUNTIE'S. #disappointmenttothefamily

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Try to guess whose is whose, but it really isn't hard to see why my grandma said what she said

Some mince pies are fully covered by a pastry lid, with maybe a tiny star shaped/Christmas tree shaped/whatever shaped hole to let steam out, but some have just a star shaped pastry stuck on top of them as a lid. Mine was the latter - or attempted to look like the latter. You would also top them with either an icing sugar dusting or granulated sugar. I think granulated sugar is more common with the ones with actual lids.

In case you didn't know what I mean by lids, this is it. That's what makes them looks like mini pies.

(Image source: www.telegraph.co.uk)

These are normally very sweet - I know many people who don't like them because they are very rich. With the sweet filling, buttery crust, and sugar dusting/sprinkling, it's not hard to see why. But the ones I had made were pretty more-ish - partly because I had made them in a bread tin so they're flatter and smaller, but I suspect it's largely to do with it not being as sweet as the ones you get in England. The pastry had balanced out the mincemeat pretty well, making it a nice, light, sweet treat, rather than a rich, dense, Christmas sweet.

Before the icing sugar dusting.

I had gotten my recipe from YouTuber Gabie Kook's vlog. The video is in Korean and this is one of her older videos without English subs, but the recipe is in the description box in English. That being said, I absolutely love her recipes - they are simple and the ingredients she use are often easily accessible. I have made her stuff in the past and gotten excellent feedback - people absolutely love the mince pies!

Recipe (adapted from Gabie Kook)

Mince meat

- Mixed dried fruit package (raisins, sultanas, orange peel) 500g + 3tbsp of sultanas (not really necessary, but I felt like having more sultanas in mine)

- Orange Juice 50ml

- Zest and juice of 1 lemon

- Brown sugar 100g (up to 110g)

- 1 red apple

- 1 1/2 tsp of ground cinnamon

- 1/2 tsp allspice

- 1/2 tsp nutmeg

- 1/2 tsp of ground black pepper

- Unsalted butter 125g, cubed and room temperature

- Brandy/Rum/Whiskey 3tbsp, depending on your preference

Note: I had halved Gabie's original recipe because I was testing out the recipe and did not want to make too much. This was enough to fill a large (500g I think) jar with a few tablespoons leftover. I had already made two batches of mince pies (18 in each batch, made with a 12 hole bread tin and a 6 hole muffin tin which is deeper therefore requires more a bit filling) with this much mincemeat, and I have maybe a fifth left of the jar.

Pie crust

- Flour 250g

- Ground almond 2tbsp

- White castor/granulated sugar 50g

- Pinch of salt

- 150g cold butter, cubed

- 1 egg

- 1 or 2 tbsp iced water, if needed

Peel and core the apple, then cut into small chunks. Mix apple chunks, dried fruit, orange juice, lemon juice and zest in a large bowl. Add the spices - ground cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and black pepper and stir well. Add the brown sugar and stir well. Rub cubed, soft butter into the mixture until fruit is coated with bits of butter. Cover with a clean tea towel or cling film and leave overnight.

Preheat oven to 110 degrees Celsius. Transfer mincemeat into an oven-proof pot (alternatively, an oven-proof tray and cover with aluminium foil) and cover. Place mincemeat in the oven for 2 hours. Remove from oven and leave to cool. Stir the mincemeat occasionally as it cools to coat the fruit well with the fat and juices. Add the brandy when the mincemeat has cooled and stir well. Mincemeat is ready to use immediately. Store in sterilised jars in a cool, dry place for 6 months to a year.

Mix flour, ground almond, sugar and salt well. Rub the cold butter into the dry ingredients, working quickly to keep the butter cold. You can do this with a pastry blender, a fork, or your fingers. When butter has been rubbed in and the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, combine the mixture with an egg to form a dough. Add 1 or 2 tbsp cold water if required. Knead into a ball and split into a quarter and three quarter parts. The smaller dough which will be used as the pie top and the bigger dough will be used as the pie crust. Wrap in cling film and chill for an hour.

Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius. After dough has rested for an hour, flour your work surface and roll out your dough into roughly 5mm thickness. Cut out shapes for the base with a round cookie cutter and the tops with a star-shaped cookie cutter. Mould the base into muffin tins and fill with mincemeat. Top with star-shaped pie crust. You can bake immediately, but I have seen sites recommending that you chill the unbaked mince pies for about 20 minutes before baking. Not sure if it makes a major difference but do let me know if it does! Bake for about 20 minutes until golden brown.

Remove from oven and leave to cool before removing from muffin tin. Dust with icing sugar and serve.

Hope all of you have a holly jolly Christmas filled with lots of mince pies!

Melissa x