Fruit Mince Pies are generally Mr 8’s thing to do in the kitchen at Christmas. He can, and does (sometimes) make his own dough, but with the business of work and Christmas, this job often falls into my lap (at the last minute), as it did this Christmas. So I think I’m pretty well qualified, after umpteen years of dough making to share my preferred recipe and making of the dough suggestions, don’t you? So here goes, Fruit Mince Pie making using Jarred Fruit Mince:
Ingredients:
2 Jars Fruit Mince (or, if you have the time, which I clearly don’t, your own Home-made version)
300g Plain Flour
60g Cornflour
1 Tbl Caster Sugar (I use regular)
200g Butter (grated)
1 Egg, separated
2 Muffin Tins
Directions:
If you’re a sifter (which I’m not), sift your flours into a large mixing bowl.
Add the sugar, and then grate your butter into the bowl. Gently work the butter into the flour and sugar until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Grating the butter makes it easier to work it into the flour than if you used cubed butter.
Add the egg yolk to the mixture along with 2 Tbl of Water. Stir to combine, then gently knead the mixture until it forms a ball of soft dough. You don’t want it to be sticky, so if it is, add a touch more flour OR if the dough is too dry, add just a little more water and knead again until you are happy with the consistency.
Form a disc out of the dough and wrap in gladwrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Then:
Preheat your oven to 200C.
Roll the pastry out on a lightly floured surface until it is about 3mm thick.
Grab something round, like a glass to cut out circles to form the bases of your tarts. Cut out one circle and place it in one of the muffin tin holes to see if it’s the size you want, and when you find the glass etc. you want to use, cut the rest of the dough into circles.
I always find the number of tarts I can make out of a batch of dough varies each time I make them, so keep in mind as you are cutting that you want to make tops for your tarts.
Fill each tart case with a decent amount of fruit mince, remembering that if you over-fill them the mixture will leak out during baking and this will cause them to stick to your muffin tins. This is not good!
I like to cut out little stars or heart shapes for the tops, but if you want to completely enclose your tarts you will need to brush the edges with a lightly beaten egg white, then place the tops onto your tarts and pinch the edges together to seal them.
Pierce the tops of the tarts with a fork and if you aren’t planning to dust your tarts with icing sugar, you might like to sprinkle them with a pinch of extra caster sugar before baking.
Bake for 10 minutes, or until the tops are lightly golden.
P.S. Mr 8 made some spectacular Fruit Mince Pies Christmas Eve with lovely Love Hearts on the top!
Top Tip: Warm tarts are lovely served with a scoop of ice-cream on the side, or serve them at room temperature with a nice hot cup of tea or coffee.