I don't know if I'd like mince pies so much if I could have them all year round. But as with my love of Cadbury's Cream Eggs, I can use the seasonality excuse to eat as many as possible while they're around.
These are a tweak on my version from last year. There's nothing wrong with bog standard mincemeat but it's so easy to tart it up with some of your favourite flavours: different booze, nuts, spices, dates, figs - whatever you like. I personally love the lemon curd which gives a bit of zing against the sweetness.
This year I've added the crumble topping which I find a much nicer texture than more pastry. I usually make a bigger batch of crumble, as it'll keep in the fridge for ages, making these even quicker to knock up.
Ingredients:
250g shop bought sweet pastry
1 jar mincemeat
3 tbsp lemon curd
Handful of chopped pistachios
1 tbsp sherry
For the topping:
75g cold butter
75g self-raising flour
35g golden castor sugar
25g chopped or flaked almonds
How to make it:
1. Pre-heat the oven to 180c/gas 4.
2. Put the flour and sugar in a bowl and cut the cold butter into small cubes.
3. Add the butter to the bowl and rub together until you have fine crumbs.
4. Keep going past that point and the crumbs will start to clump together. Once you have a mix of lumps and fine crumbs, put the mixture in a bag and leave in the fridge for at least 20mins.
5. Take the sweet pastry out of the fridge about 20mins before you need it.
6. Grease a 12-hole muffin tin.
7. Put the mincemeat in a large bowl and add the lemon curd, pistachios and sherry. Mix well.
8. Sprinkle some plain flour onto your work surface and then sprinkle with some ground cinnamon.
9. Roll out the pastry to about 3mm. You want the pastry thin, but if you go too thin, it won't be strong enough to hold the filling.
10. Cut out rounds to fit the holes of your muffin tin - you should get about 10.
11. Put the pastry rounds into the tin, gently pushing it into the bottom of the hole. If you get any tears or the bottom looks a bit too thin, add some extra patches of pastry.
12. Add the mincemeat into the pastry cases, probably about a teaspoon and a half in each one. Make sure you leave a gap for the crumble.
13. Take the crumble mix out of the fridge and sprinkle over the mincemeat. Try to cover it as much as you can to stop it bubbling out when it gets hot.
14. Sprinkle the almonds on top of the crumble.
15. Bake for 12-15 mins, until the crumble has turned light gold.
16. Remove from the oven and place the tin on a cooling rack for 10mins.
17. Remove carefully from the tin with a small palette knife and eat warm with lashings of Baileys cream.
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