Festive Mince Pies and a Recipe for Mincemeat

I have included recipes which use mincemeat in a couple of recent posts and decided that I really should post a recipe for simple mince pies… and these ARE simple to make and are far superior to any that you could buy. They just taste so good.

The pastry is light and crumbly and is easy to work with. I always make my sweet shortcrust pastry with real butter because it really makes a difference in terms of the taste of the finished product and I urge you to do the same. I think we have the best tasting butter here in Ireland and I unashamedly use it all the time.

In the past pastry was used as a vehicle to encase various meats or fruits and was often discarded or left uneaten. These days pastry is an important edible element in the recipes in which it is used. Like so many recipes where very few ingredients are used, I believe that the quality of those ingredients is of critical importance so I use the best that I can afford.

I have also included a recipe for home-made mincemeat. This is another great preserve to make during the Autumn months in preparation for Christmas. It stores very well  if spooned into sterilised jars and kept in a cool, dark cupboard. It is far easier to make than you might think. By all means use a quality, shop-bought mincemeat, but if you do I advise mixing a couple of spoons of brandy or a flavoured liqueur such as Amaretto or Cointreau through it, prior to using, to add a little extra taste of luxury to the finished pies.

Mince pies mean Christmas to me and they are a great treat to have stored in an airtight tin for when unexpected guests pop by. I should also mention that the uncooked, filled pies can be frozen and then cooked directly without thawing… just give them an extra 5-7 minutes in the oven.
  

Ingredients:

Mincemeat:

450g cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped into smallish dice

225 shredded suet

350g raisins

225g sultanas

225g currants

225g candied peel

350g soft dark brown sugar

Grated zest and juice of 2 lemons

Grated zest and juice of 2 oranges

2 tsp mixed spice

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground nutmeg

4 tblsp brandy

2 tblsp Cointreau

Sweet shortcrust pastry:

175g plain flour

50g icing sugar

100g butter, cubed

1 egg yolk

 

Method:

Mincemeat:
1. Combine all the ingredients except the brandy and Cointreau in a large ceramic or other oven-proof mixing bowl making sure to stir well so that everything is thoroughly mixed together.

Cover the bowl loosely with foil and leave the mixture in a cool place overnight, so that the flavours have a chance to develop.

2. Preheat the oven to 110C/Fan oven 90C/Gas Mark ¼. Place the foil covered bow in the oven for three hours. Remove from the oven. The mixture will look quite liquid at this stage but will thicken as it cools.

3. Stir from time-to-time as it cools. When it is completely cooled stir through the brandy and Cointreau. Pack into sterilised jars and store in a cool dark place until you wish to use it.

To Make the Mince Pies:

1. Sieve the flour and icing sugar together into a large bowl. Add the diced butter and using your fingertips rub into the flour and icing sugar until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Make a well in the centre and add in the egg yolk and a tablespoon of water and mix to bring everything together to form a dough. Do not over-work the dough. Cover the dough with cling-film and allow to rest in the refrigerator for at least half an hour.

2. Preheat oven to 190C/Fan Oven 170C/Gas Mark 5. Thinly roll out the pastry on a lightly floured work-surface and using a 7cm round cookie cutter, stamp out rounds of the pastry and use to line individual patty tins. Put a generous teaspoon of mincemeat into each. Using a pastry brush, dampen the edge of each little pie with a little water or a beaten egg and place another round of pastry on top. Seal the pies by pressing the pastry tops and bottoms together with the tines of a fork.

3. Place in the preheated oven and cook for approximately 15 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow cool in the tins.

4. I love these served at room temperature with a little dusting of icing sugar. When completely cold they can be stored very successfully in an air-tight tin for up to 5 days, but they have never lasted that long in my household.

 

Makes approximately 12 individual pies.
 

Gnocchi

Given the Irish love affair with the potato, I have always been very curious about how other food cultures use the humble spud.
 
Gnocchi, which hail from Italy, are little dumplings usually made with potato, but also frequently made with other vegetables, ricotta cheese, stale bread – essentially a way of using up whatever is close to hand. In this sense, they are a true “peasant food”.
 
Until fairly recently, my only experience of eating gnocchi were ones that I had bought in vacuum packs from the supermarket. And to be honest, I really could not see what the appeal was! The few times that I had eaten them, I found them to be leaden, stodgy lumps which sat in the stomach. No disguising with a variety of sauces managed to change my opinion. The London-based Italian chef Giorgio Locatelli states that gnocchi are one of his favourite dishes in the world. Other well-known and respected cooks wax lyrical about their “lightness”, “the comforting, melt-in-the-mouth texture”. WHAT were they all talking about??? That had not been my experience!
 
But that all changed recently!

A good friend and an amazing cook, recently invited a couple of us to dinner. As an accompaniment to the rabbit dish that he had prepared for us, he had made little potato gnocchi with a chestnut velouté. The gnocchi were unbelievable. They were light, yet comforting to eat and so so moreish!

 

Armed with advice on how to make them, I did further research and what follows is my recipe. The great thing about gnocchi is that they are a fabulous vehicle for other flavours. Herbs can be included in the mixture itself or other tastes can be introduced by way of sauces. I have kept it simple here and made potato gnocchi with a butter and sage sauce. Simple… Cheap… Tasty!

 

Tips: In my opinion, the key to success with gnocchi lies with the potato that is used. A very starchy, floury potato is vital. I used Roosters and found them to be very successful.  Also, although many recipes advocate boiling the potatoes, I found that baking them produced a far, dryer result and a more intense potato taste.

 

Make the gnocchi dough whilst the potatoes are still hot, but watch your hands because the potatoes will be very hot when just out of the oven! Use a potato ricer to break up the potato. A lightness of touch when handling the dough is preferable as you do not want to overwork the gluten in the flour that is included.

 

Some recipes use eggs to bind the dough together, others don’t. To use eggs or not can be a highly contentious issue, but I found the egg yolks helped bind the mixture together and had the added advantage of adding a luxurious richness to the finished dish.

 

Finally, remember to season the dough well as otherwise they can taste very bland.

Ingredients:

3-4 large Rooster potatoes
Olive oil
Rock salt

50g plain flour

2 egg yolks

Salt & Pepper to season

2-3 tablespoons of polenta

50g clarified butter

A handful of sage leaves

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/Fan Oven 170C/Gas Mark 5. Wash the potatoes to remove any dirt and then dry them well. Rub a small amount of olive oil on the skin of each potato before sprinkling with rock salt. Wrap each potato individually in tin foil and place in the oven for about one hour to cook through fully.
2. Remove from the oven. As soon as they are cool enough to safely handle, scoop out the potato flesh and discard the skins. Push the potato flesh through a potato ricer or fine metal sieve. Sieve the flour over the potato and season well with salt and pepper. Add the egg yolks and cheese and mix to bring the dough together.

3. Sprinkle your work surface with a little flour and divide the dough into four. Roll each piece into a long thin sausage shape about 1½cms wide. Cut the sausage of dough into 2cm long pieces. Each individual dumpling can then be gently rolled with a fork to create the characteristic grooves on the gnocchi. Place the gnocchi on a tray dusted with fine polenta, while you make more gnocchi with the remaining dough.

4. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and then turn down to a simmer. Tip in half the gnocchi. While they are simmering melt the clarified butter in a medium sized frying pan until hot.

5. Check the gnocchi. When they start to rise to the top of the water, cook them for about another twenty seconds before removing with a slotted smooth straight into the hot butter. Once they start to colour, turn them in the pan and add a few sage leaves. Allow the sage leaves to crisp up but not burn.

6. Serve in bowls.

Serves 4-6.

 

Pear & Mincemeat Frangipane Tart

My grandmother used to make the most delicious mincemeat in October or November each year. She would carefully bottle it into sterilised jars and it would later be used to make the tastiest mince pies in the run up to Christmas.
 
Whilst many people aren’t keen on mincemeat, I acquired a taste for it as a child and I have loved it ever since. Most often mincemeat is used to fill small individual pies made out of sweet shortcrust pastry. To me, Christmas has really arrived when the baking of the mince pies starts and I tend to make my first batch of the year as soon as the 1^st December arrives.
 
Although mincemeat is mainly used to make little pies, it can be used in so many other ways. I previously posted a recipe for Mincemeat Chelsea Buns, which I have actually come to prefer to traditional Chelsea Buns. They are rich and sweet and probably hugely calorific, but they taste so good and are just perfect for Christmas. As is probably evident from these pages, I have been using pears an awful lot recently, and I apologise for doing so once again now… but if you like mincemeat, you have to try this recipe. It is lovely and would be ideal to serve over the festive season. You can leave the pears out, but I think that they provide a little fruity juiciness which is lovely.
 
Amaretto definitely accentuates the taste of the pears. I mixed a couple of tablespoons of this gloriously almondy liqueur through the mincemeat before spreading a layer of it on the pie base. I also included a couple of tablespoons in the frangipane topping. I am really pleased with the result and I feel that I got the balance just right.
 
This pie would be lovely served with a little crème fraîche to cut through the richness of the tart, but I have to admit that it is also very good, served slightly warm with a generous scoop of vanilla ice-cream.

Ingredients:

Sweet shortcrust pastry:

175g plain flour

50g icing sugar

100g butter

1 egg yolk

1tblsp cold water

Frangipane:

125g butter, softened

125g caster sugar

2 eggs

125g ground almonds

2tblsp of plain flour

2tblsp of Amaretto

You will also need:

2 pears, peeled, cored and diced into 2cm cubes

450g mincemeat

2tblsp Amaretto

50g flaked almonds

Method:

To make the pastry:

1. Sieve the flour and icing sugar together into a large bowl. Add the diced butter and using your fingertips rub into the flour and icing sugar until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Make a well in the centre and add in the egg yolks and a tablespoon of water and mix to bring everything together and form a dough. Do not over-work the dough. Cover the dough with cling-film and allow to rest in the refrigerator for at least half an hour.

2. Preheat oven to 190C/Fan Oven 170C/Gas Mark 5. Thinly roll out the pastry on a lightly floured work-surface and use to line the base and sides of a 23cm wide x 3cm deep round, fluted tart tin with a removable base.

3. Using a metal spoon, mix the Amaretto through the mincemeat and spread out in a thin layer over the base of the tart. Sprinkle the cubed pear on top of the mincemeat and set aside while you make the frangipane.

To make the frangipane:

4. Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs and then fold in the ground almonds and flour. Finally mix through the Amaretto.

5. Spread the frangipane on top of the mincemeat and pears and sprinkle the flaked almonds, evenly over the top.

6. Place the tart tin on a large baking tray and bake in the preheated oven for approximately 55 minutes until the filling is just set.

7. Remove from the tin and allow to cool before serving. I like to dust the top of this pie with icing sugar before serving.

Serves 8.

 

Kiddylicious Gingerbread House

I have always been fascinated with gingerbread houses.

They just look so beautiful, mysterious and fantastical. So, as mentioned in my post on Christmas Gingerbread Cookies (23^rd November 2013), I was determined that I would make one this year! And here it is!!!

I used exactly the same recipe (but doubled the quantity) that I used for the Gingerbread Cookies and it really worked a treat. I was delighted with how it turned out.

I created a template for the different parts of my house and cut them out in cardboard (an old cereal box was used) as I wanted something fairly rigid to cut around to create the walls and roof of my house. I rolled the dough to about ¾cm which is slightly thicker than I normally would for smaller cookies as I wanted to ensure that the house would not collapse when I later assembled it. I cooked the pieces for about 15 minutes until they were just beginning to brown around the edges and let them cool completely on the baking sheets before I attempted to remove them.
 

I would advise decorating each piece individually and let the icing dry BEFORE you assemble the house. I used a large quantity of the icing recipe that I gave in my Gingerbread Cookies recipe. And I basically let my imagination run riot. I wanted to create something that was over-the-top but was still beautiful and looked delicious. And if I say so myself, I think I did! My children loved it, although they wanted to start eating it immediately. The various pieces are then joined together using more of the icing.

 

In addition to decorating with icing, you can also “glue” on all sorts of foodstuffs like nuts or cereal with little blobs of icing. I recently discovered the Kiddylicious range and think their products are so tasty, so I decided that I would use them. A  packet of Kiddylicious Fruit Wriggles counts as 1 of your child's 5-a-day, so this was also an added attraction. In particular, I liked their authentic fruit taste. I used the Apple Fruit Wriggles to replicate a thatched roof and some of the Strawberry & Banana Smoothie Melts as bricks on my house. I loved the effect that was achieved.

 

Making the house was not difficult, but I will admit that it was time consuming… But I think that it was worth it, because of the look of amazement on my gang’s faces when I unveiled it to them! Of all the things that I cook and bake, I don’t think any have ever elicited the same reaction!!! It may sound a bit daft, but I am really proud of what I managed to achieve at my first attempt.
 

 

 

Lemon Posset & Blueberry Compote with Shortbread Fingers

This has to be one of the simplest desserts to make and the combination of lemon and blueberry is sublime! Other soft fruits could be used for the compote and even though I haven’t tried it yet, I think raspberries might be particularly good. The deep pink of a raspberry compote against the pale lemon of the posset would look so elegant.

I have come across recipes for possets which use other citrus fruits. Personally, I think that you need to use a fruit that is quite tart and bitter so in my own mind I have ruled out the use of sweet oranges. However, when available in January and February, Seville oranges could work very well. I have yet to do more experimenting with other citrus fruits, but will report back when I do.

This is the type of dessert that looks like it should be quite complicated to make, but truthfully, it is incredibly simple and it has worked, without fail, every time that I have made it. I love it!

Despite being so simple to make and using very few ingredients, this is a very rich dessert. I caution you to serve small portions. The first time that I made it, I presented it in tumbler-sized glasses. Although delectable, it was too much. Since then I have served it in large shot glasses or have only one-third filled the tumbler-sized glasses.

 

I like to serve this posset with a couple of shortbread biscuits on the side. I really like the marriage of the rich and creamy posset with the crumbly, buttery crunch that the shortbread provides.

 

Possets are desserts steeped in tradition and history. Originally a posset was a beverage made from hot milk and honey to which wine or ale was added. It was very popular in the Middle Ages throughout the British Isles. The dessert evolved over time into the chilled, thickened cream - based dessert that we are familiar with today.

 

Lady Macbeth used a poisoned posset to knock out the guards keeping watch outside Duncan’s quarters in Macbeth but I promise you, if you like lemons and blueberries you will love this dessert.

 

Ingredients:

500ml double cream

150g caster sugar

75ml freshly squeezed lemon juice

Zest of three lemons

Blueberry compote:

250g fresh blueberries

100g caster sugar

Method:

1. Put the cream into a medium sized saucepan. Bring the cream to the boil and then stir in the lemon juice, lemon zest and sugar. Bring back to the boil, stirring constantly and allow simmer for two minutes.

2. Remove the saucepan from the heat and pass the cream and lemon mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl and allow to cool for about twenty minutes. Pour evenly into 8-10 small glasses and leave to cool completely.

3. When completely cool, cover and refrigerate until chilled.

Blueberry compote:

4. Place the sugar in a small, heavy based saucepan and heat over a high heat until the sugar begins to melt. Do not allow the sugar to caramelise too much, but once all the sugar has melted add the all the blueberries and mix with a wooden spoon.

5. Reduce the heat under the saucepan and keep stirring. Some of the sugar may seize but as the blueberries release their juices everything will become liquid again. Just keep stirring. After a couple of minutes you will have a lovely rich blueberry compote. Set aside to cool completely. Once cooled, cover and refrigerate.

To serve:

6. Spoon a layer of blueberry compote on top of each lemon posset to cover completely in an even layer.

7. Serve with shortbread biscuits. I made shortbread finger using my basic shortbread recipe rolling out the dough to about half a centimetre thick and cutting into fingers before baking in a preheated oven for approximately 15 minutes.

Serves 8-10.
 

Cornflake Cookies

Like so many other people, one of the first things that I ever made were Rice Krispie buns. They are so simple to make – you melt some chocolate, pour in some Rice Krispies, mix like mad so every little puffed grain of rice gets generously coated in the chocolate and then scoop into paper cases and set aside until the chocolate hardens! They are practically mandatory fare at children’s’ parties throughout Ireland and no birthday party is complete without them!
 
I was fairly young when it struck me that I didn’t have to confine the culinary possibilities of this delicacy to Rice Krispies only – other breakfast cereals could be used in their place!!! In my humble opinion there is nothing like the taste of chocolate Cornflake buns. I love them… and yes - I still make them regularly!
 

I love the crunch of the flaked corn which is almost exaggerated by being coated in chocolate. I find them so much more satisfying than their puffed rice counterparts. I should also declare that chocolate snobbery is matter-less when making Cornflake buns; I hold my head in shame and will admit to you that I regularly use chocolate flavoured cake covering and not some exclusive chocolate! 70% minimum cocoa solids have no place here… and if I am being honest, I don’t think anyone will ever be able to change my mind on this, because one bite of the “fake” chocolate versions transports me back to when I was a child and makes me recall so many happy times.

 
I was recently reminiscing about foods and dishes that I used to like to eat when I was younger and was reminded of this personal fondness for chocolate Cornflake buns. I began to wonder how else one could use Cornflakes in cooking and baking. There are a number of possibilities which I am keen to try out, but for now, the recipe that I present here is for Cornflake Cookies.
 
These are really lovely and are so crumbly and light. They are incredible simple to make and keep very well for a few days if stored in an air tight tin. I like to stud each individual biscuit with half a glacé cherry just prior to baking but if you are not a fan, just leave them out. The cookies will still be delicious with their crunchy coating of cornflakes.
 
This is a great recipe to get children the children involved with. Little hands are great at rolling small balls of dough! Pernickety as it sounds, for the biscuits pictured, I actually weighed out uniform amounts of dough before rolling. Each ball weighed exactly 16g. Anyone who knows me will find it highly amusing that I did this because I normally have no patience for doing these things.

Ingredients:

100g butter, softened

75g caster sugar

1 egg yolk

1tsp vanilla paste

150g self-raising flour

50g cornflakes, lightly crushed

9-10 glacé cherries, halved

Method:

1. Using an electric hand-held whisk cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolk and vanilla paste. Using a wooden spoon work in the flour until everything comes together to form a dough. Refrigerate the dough for half an hour.

2. Preheat the oven to 190C/Fan Oven 170C/Gas Mark 5. Line two large baking trays with non-stick baking parchment and leave aside.

3. Divide the mixture into 18-20 even sized balls. Spread out the crushed cornflakes on a plate and gently press one side of the dough balls into the cornflakes flattening the balls slightly as you do so.

4. Place the dough balls, cornflake side facing upwards on the parchment lined trays, leaving space between each one as they do expand during baking. Press a cherry half on top of each cookie.

5. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven and allow cool on the baking trays for about five minutes before removing to wire racks to finish cooling completely.
  
Makes 18-20 cookies.