Christmas Mince Pies

I always helped my mother make these little christmas tasties. I never liked the fruit mince filling, but mom often let me fill the last tray with the overused parts of the dough and jam, making little jam tarts. Over the years I have taken over the role of making the traditional pies (along with various helpers in the form of cousins and friends), a role I quite enjoy. Our family are prodigious christmas mince pie eaters so I tend to make at least 7 dozen (yes, that would be 84 pies). We get through this in about two weeks. Dad normally plays a large part in consuming these dainties, with the traditional 'tester' or three on baking day. The 'tester' is always followed by the comment "It needs more brandy", no matter how much brandy I have poured in. This year there wasn't any brandy in the booze cabinet *shock! horror!* so I had to google what could be used as a substitute and think I ended up pouring in some rum. Another tradition in making these tartlets is to taste the alcohol going into it, regularly, so as to ensure the alcohol has not gone bad while you have been busy making pies (stranger things have been known to happen). This year I also added in some almonds to the fruit mince, and it resulted in a softer mince taste, quite to my liking (with all the pies I have made over the years I have finally started liking these tarts). 

I always like to use my mom's dough recipe (which is actually just a shortcrust pastry recipe), as it doesn't have any sugar in it:

Christmas Mince Pie Dough

450 g flour

300 g butter

60 ml cold water

·         Mix all ingredients together

·         Bake at 205 ^oC for about 12 minutes

For the fruit mince filling I normally mix the following together:

1 jar store-bought fruit mince

1 grated golden delicious apple

125 ml brandy (or to taste)

Use about a teaspoon of the fruit mince in each pie. 

The fortified fruit mince 

Mince pies, covered up and in the process of getting tucked in (edges forked down)

 No forked edges (experimentation to see whether the filling in forked or unforked pies bubble out the most- a neverending problem that others are happy to see as they can eat the failures)

Pies fresh out of the oven, with more cooling on the rack.

Happy baking!