Abel and Cole Season’s Best Mince Pie Recipe
If you put all of Abel and Cole’s fabulous tasting ingredients together, you get one mean mince pie. This year I made up a last-minute batch of mincemeat (minus the meat) and have truly great tasting pies. If you have the time, I strongly recommend giving this a go. It is a time consuming recipe, but not very difficult. The end result is more than worth the effort.
Mince Ingredients:
1 KG Bramley cooking apples (peeled, paired, diced)
250 grams raisins
Zest and juice of two oranges
Half a mug of sugar
Three generous glugs of brandy (not available with Abel and Cole)
Clove, cinnamon, nutmeg
Pastry Ingredients:
500 grams white flour
250 grams butter, cubed
4 tablespoons (a good shake) of icing sugar
4 tablespoons of water
Method:
The night before, peel, chop and dice your apples and mix everything together. Minimally give it all a few hours to come together before baking, but the longer the better. I make up a giant portion and keep taking from it over the weeks before Christmas as I bake for friends (the sugar, brandy, and spices preserve the apples).
For the pastry, I cheated this year and used my food processor. Put 500 grams flour in the food processor with the large blade. Chop cold butter directly from the fridge into cubes and drop into the flour with the blade running. When all the butter has been added, transfer the dough to a bowl and add a little bit of cold water while working the dough together. You want the consistency to stick together without becoming crumbly on the edges. Leave the dough to rest on the counter for one hour before putting into the fridge (if you put is straight in it crumbles when you roll it out)
When you are ready to bake, if you have deep muffin tins those work brilliantly for this, but you can also use more traditional shallow ones.
Roll the dough out in small pieces to line the bottoms of the tins. If there are any cracks or weak parts, just press a small piece of dough into it to make it strong. Scoop a generous portion of mincemeat into the pastry and roll out a top. My kids like to use a cutter shaped like an angel to give to their friends, you can also roll out a top and pinch the edges together to make a real pie.
These are so good and special, you can certainly taste a difference with being homemade, but especially the Bramley apples this year. Enjoy!!
