Chest's Mince Pies- the perfect guide for beginners, these mince pies are as easy a recipe as you can get. No need to make your own pastry or mincemeat.
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These are quite the cheatiest mince pies you'll ever find! Minimal effort, a bit of mess, but worth it. Shop-bought mince pies are lovely, but the pastry is usually quite soft. I much prefer it to be short and crumbly.
I'm going to confess right up front that what makes them cheat's mince pies is that you use a jar of mincemeat and shop-bought pastry to make them. It annoys me so much, when I read other people's recipes when you think you've found something that looks good to try, and the recipe is full of shop bought items, jars of enchilada sauce, Italian dressing and so on, that you weren't expecting. I get grumpy, and then start googling "How to make traditional enchilada sauce".
So be warned, if you've arrived at this recipe, it's made up of shop-bought ingredients that you assemble. You're not making mincemeat or pastry yourself. Basically, if you want to make home-made tasting mince pies with minimum fuss, this is for you. If you want to make your own pastry and learn how to make mincemeat from scratch, keep on googling!
Ingredients
(makes 12)
250g shortcrust pastry (can use dessert pastry, but it's not necessary)
200g mincemeat
flour for dusting
butter for greasing
milk for glazing
Method
1. Take the pastry out of the fridge at least half an hour beforehand.
2. Grease a shallow tart tin with butter.
3. Flour a surface and roll the pastry out to 1cm thickness.
4. Use a circle cutter slightly bigger in diameter than the tart tin wells.
5. Press the circles of pastry into the wells.
6. Put a heaped teaspoon of mincemeat into each pastry circle.
7. Using a circle cutter one size smaller, cut circles of pastry to top the mincemeat. If you need too, roll pastry remnants back into a ball and roll it out again.
8. Place the the circles on top of the mincemeat and press the edges into the lower pastry edges firmly (if you don't do it firmly enough, the tops rise up like top hats, as you can see in my pictures!)
9. Pierce each top with a sharp knife.
10. Brush some milk across each one and place in the oven at 200 (180 fan, gas mark 6) for 12-15 mins or until golden.
These are quite the cheatiest mince pies you'll ever find! Minimal effort, a bit of mess, but worth it. Shop-bought mince pies are lovely, but the pastry is usually quite soft. I much prefer it to be short and crumbly.
I'm going to confess right up front that what makes them cheat's mince pies is that you use a jar of mincemeat and shop-bought pastry to make them. It annoys me so much, when I read other people's recipes when you think you've found something that looks good to try, and the recipe is full of shop bought items, jars of enchilada sauce, Italian dressing and so on, that you weren't expecting. I get grumpy, and then start googling "How to make traditional enchilada sauce".
So be warned, if you've arrived at this recipe, it's made up of shop-bought ingredients that you assemble. You're not making mincemeat or pastry yourself. Basically, if you want to make home-made tasting mince pies with minimum fuss, this is for you. If you want to make your own pastry and learn how to make mincemeat from scratch, keep on googling!
Looking for other mince pie recipes?
Make Cheat's Mince Pies
Ingredients
(makes 12)
250g shortcrust pastry (can use dessert pastry, but it's not necessary)
200g mincemeat
flour for dusting
butter for greasing
milk for glazing
Method
1. Take the pastry out of the fridge at least half an hour beforehand.
2. Grease a shallow tart tin with butter.
3. Flour a surface and roll the pastry out to 1cm thickness.
4. Use a circle cutter slightly bigger in diameter than the tart tin wells.
5. Press the circles of pastry into the wells.
6. Put a heaped teaspoon of mincemeat into each pastry circle.
7. Using a circle cutter one size smaller, cut circles of pastry to top the mincemeat. If you need too, roll pastry remnants back into a ball and roll it out again.
8. Place the the circles on top of the mincemeat and press the edges into the lower pastry edges firmly (if you don't do it firmly enough, the tops rise up like top hats, as you can see in my pictures!)
9. Pierce each top with a sharp knife.
10. Brush some milk across each one and place in the oven at 200 (180 fan, gas mark 6) for 12-15 mins or until golden.
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