Fruit Mince Pies

When you think of Christmas food, you don’t get more traditional than fruit mince pies.

Ingredients

Filling:

• 360 g dried mixed fruit
• 200 g brown sugar
• 1 Granny Smith apple (peeled, quartered, cored and grated)
• 50 g slivered almonds (chopped)
• 40 g butter
• 2 tablespoons brandy
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 3 teaspoons lemon rind (finely grated)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon mixed spice
• A pinch of ground nutmeg
• 1 egg (lightly whisked)
• White sugar

Pastry:

• 300 g plain flour
• 70 g caster sugar
• 160 g chilled butter (chopped)
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons of very cold water

Method

Filling:

• We start by finely chopping half of the mixed fruit, and placing it in a large bowl.
• Add the almond, apple, brown sugar, brandy, lemon rind, butter, lemon juice, cinnamon, mixed spice, nutmeg and the other half of the mixed fruit. Stir these until everything is combined. Cover the mixture with plastic wrap, and leave it standing overnight, and occasionally stirring, to macerate.
• Use a fine sieve to remove excess liquid from the fruit mixture.

Pastry:

• Place the flour, butter and sugar and butter in a food processor and stop processing when the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Add the water and egg yolk, and process until everything just starts to come together.
• Put the mixture on a clean work surface, and shape it into a disc. Cover the disc with plastic wrap, and then place in your fridge for about 20 minutes.
• Preheat your oven to 180°C.
• On a lightly-floured surface, roll out the pastry until it is about 5 mm thick. Take a 8.5 cm-diameter round pastry cutter, and create 20 discs from the pastry. Use a 5 cm-diameter star-shaped pastry cutter to cut 20 stars from what pastry remains.

Completing the pies:

• Now place your pastry discs in twenty 80 ml-capacity muffin pans, and equally divide the fruit mince filling between each disc. Now top each with a pastry star and for the finishing touch, lightly brush each star with egg and sprinkle with white sugar.
• Bake the pies for about 20-25 minutes, or until the colour reaches a light-gold. Then allow the pans to cool off for 5 minutes, and transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.