Unless you are from an english speaking country, no doubt, some of you may even wonder what is a mince pie. And you are probably wonderingwhy on earth youwould youmix minced meat with fruit and sugar then wrap in pastry?
Mince pies are a traditional British sweet eaten around Christmas time. Said to have been brought over by the Europeancrusaders from the Holy Land. Indeed, they arereminiscent of Middle Eastern cooking, where meat is often combined with fruits, nuts and spices. Therefore, the very first mince pies actually did contain meat. However, palates changed over the years and the current day mince pie no longer contains meat andis purely dried fruits (currants, sultanas, apple, mixed peel), shredded suet or vegetable shortening, sugar and brandy. The mince meat is usually prepared months ahead, preserved by plentiful sugar and alcohol!
Frangipane Mince Pies
There are many fabulous mince pie recipes out there and most are pretty basic, after all they are just pastry (sweet or savoury) and mince meatfilling. No doubt you’ll have your favourites already. I’ve been making these particular frangipane mince pies for the past ten years, which havebecome a firm favourite amongst family and friends alike. As a result, no Christmas is quite complete without these buttery, mounds of deliciousness.
Other than their fabulous taste, one of the best things about these frangipane mince pies is you can make themwell in advance of Christmas. Either make the pastry ahead of time and freeze in discs, or make the complete mince pie with filling and all and freeze between layers of greaseproof paper. They will easily freeze for 2-3 months. One Christmas I made about 50 mince pies and were still eating mince pies at Easter time!
Does size matter?
Nigella’s recipe states she makes 24 regular sized mince pies out of these quantities, using a 7cm cookie cutter. A point to note though, if you do use a 7cm cutter you will have a very shallow mince pie. Therefore, if you prefer a deeper mince pie, like I do, I recommend you use a 9cm cookie cutter rather than the 7cm cookie cutter. You will find that the quantity of frangipane in this recipe yields enough to make 12-18 lovely, deep filled, pies,or one tray of regular and one tray of minis.I made 12 regular sized (9cm cookie cutter) and onetray of 12 mini (7cm cookie cutter) mince pies.
If you love mince pies then I’m sure you’ll love these. Even though, they may take a little longer than a regular mince pie they arewell worth the extra 10 minutes it takes making the frangipane.
What is your favourite Christmas food treat?
If you have any questions or comments just drop me a line or write in the comments box below.
No Christmas is complete without these gorgeous little morsels of almondy, buttery delight. You could describe them as mini bakewell tarts with a Christmas twist.
Course:Biscuits & Bakes
Cuisine:British
Servings: 18
Author: Gillian Thompson
Ingredients
For the pastry:
175gplain flourpreferably 00
30gground almonds
65gicing sugar
pinch of salt
125gcold unsalted butterdiced
2large egg yolksbeaten with 1 tbsp of iced water
For the topping:
200gmincemeat
1tbspbrandyoptional
90gcaster sugar
90gunsalted buttermelted
2large eggs
90gground almonds
4tbspflaked almonds
Instructions
For the Pastry
Put the flour, ground almonds, sugar and salt into the food processor bowl and pulse to combine.
Add the chilled diced butter and process until you have a mixture the texture of breadcrumbs.
Start to add, one tablespoon at a time, the egg and water mix down the funnel. Pulse as you add, until the pastry looks like it's about to form a ball around the blade.
Turn out the mixture onto a lightly floured surface and bring together with your hands to form a dough.
Shape the dough into 2 discs, cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Roll out one of the disc and stamp out 6 circles. The circles need to be slightly larger than the tart indentations. Press the pastry down gently. Roll out your next disc of dough and repeat. Place the tray back into the fridge for a further 15 minutes to rest.
Preheat the oven to 200C / gas mark 6.
The filling:
Melt your butter.
In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs and sugar then pour in the melted butter, whilst still beating. Then stir in the ground almonds.
Mix the brandy into the mincemeat.
Remove the tray from the fridge and place 3/4 teaspoon of the brandy mince meat into each pastry cavity.
Add a tablespoon of the frangipane mix over each mince meat filled pastry.
Sprinkle each pie with some flaked almonds and bake for 15 minutes, or until the pastry is cooked and the tops are golden brown.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tins for at least 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Recipe Notes
Nigella's recipe states she makes 24 regular sized mince pies out of these quantities, using a 7cm biscuit cutter. However, a 7cm cutter is ideal for the mini sized tarts (using a mini muffin tin) and are very cute indeed, but if you prefer more than a mouthful the I recommend you use the regular sized muffin trays and a 9cm cookie cutter.
A mince pie (also mincemeat pie in North America, and fruit mince pie in Australia and New Zealand) is a sweet pie of English origin filled with mincemeat, being a mixture of fruit, spices and suet. The pies are traditionally served during the Christmas season in much of the English-speaking world.
Stirring the mincemeat was quite an event, and English tradition dictates that it should only be stirred clockwise. Stirring the mincemeat anti-clockwise would lead to bad luck and poor fortune in the coming 12 months.
They became a popular treat around the festive period thanks to a tradition from the middle ages, which saw people eat a mince pie for 12 days from Christmas day to Twelfth Night. Doing this was believed to bring you happiness for the next 12 months. We'll eat to that!
The mince pie was originally filled with meat but it's believed that it wasn't until the late Victorian period and the early 20th century that mince pies shifted to a pie made from fruit fillings. Is it still illegal to eat mince pies on Christmas day?
In American English, "mincemeat" is a sweet pie filling (I think it's mince pie in BrE) which originally contained some meat but in modern times it is generally made mostly of apples and raisins. It's not very popular anymore, but you sometimes see it around Christmas time.
It has been claimed that eating the snack is illegal in England if done so on Christmas Day. The tradition comes from the time of Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s, when mince pies were banned at Christmas, along with other tasty treats. Cromwell wanted to tackle gluttony in England.
A pie full of spices and meat appears in 1390 in A Forme of Cury, an English cookbook originally written on a scroll, under the name “tartes of flesh”. To make these morsels, cooks were instructed to grind up pork, hard-boiled eggs, and cheese, before mixing them with spices, saffron, and sugar.
Going on to how one should formally eat a mince pie, she explains: 'One would pick up the mince pie with a thumb and first finger, and lift [it] away from the plate. 'The mince pie is crumbly, so make sure anything that falls from the mince pie falls onto your plate.
Why do we eat mince pies at Christmas? Mince pies were originally made to celebrate Jesus. They were oblong in shape to represent the manger that Jesus slept in as a baby and have a 'pastry baby Jesus' carved into the pastry. Traditionally one mince pie is eaten for the Twelve days of Christmas.
People in the South West eat the most mince pies in the UK, according to research by bakery chain Konditor. Having surveyed 2,000 people, the London-based company found that, on average, each person in the South West eats 24 mince pies across the festive period.
Small pies were known as chewets and had pinched tops, giving them the look of small cabbages or chouettes. The earliest reference to a small mince pie as a 'minst pye' rather than a chewet occurs in a recipe from 1624, called 'For six Minst Pyes of an Indifferent Bigness'.
The "mince" in mincemeat comes from the Middle English mincen, and the Old French mincier both traceable to the Vulgar Latin minutiare, meaning chop finely. The word mincemeat is an adaptation of an earlier term minced meat, meaning finely chopped meat. Meat was also a term for food in general, not only animal flesh.
Some speculation has it that mince pies were illegal to eat on the day of Christmas. However, the only Christmas Day where eating mince pies was illegal was 1644 due to December falling on a day of fasting. Eat all of the mince pies to your heart's desires!
Nowadays, it's easy to find mincemeat pies still made with beef suet and a small amount of minced meats (usually beef). All-vegetarian mincemeat pies are readily available as well, especially if you purchase a premade jar of mincemeat filling.
The "mince" in mincemeat comes from the Middle English mincen, and the Old French mincier both traceable to the Vulgar Latin minutiare, meaning chop finely. The word mincemeat is an adaptation of an earlier term minced meat, meaning finely chopped meat. Meat was also a term for food in general, not only animal flesh.
Simmer apples, apple cider, candied cherries, brown sugar, apricots, dried cherries, cranberries, currants, figs, orange zest, orange juice, golden raisins, raisins, schmaltz, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, salt, and ¾ cup rum in a medium pot over medium heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until almost ...
Mince is ground or finely chopped meat. Mincemeat, if referring to the mincemeat in pies, is a mixture of finely chopped dried fruit, nuts, sugar, spices and alcohol, sometimes containing minced meat, sometimes not.
Unfortunately the company who bought it has decided to discontinue! Get it while you can-the cookie recipe is on the box and they're awesome. Sadly you cannot replicate the cookies properly using the jarred minced meat/they do NOT come out well. Pricey but worth it!
Introduction: My name is Eusebia Nader, I am a encouraging, brainy, lively, nice, famous, healthy, clever person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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