2¼ cups cake and pastry flour or unbleached all-purpose flour (322g)
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ cup butter, cold (115g)
½ cup vegetable shortening or lard, cold (95g)
1 egg
1 tablespoon white vinegar
6-8 tablespoons cold water
extra flour for rolling
For the filling:
550g mincemeat (about 2½ - 3 cups)
For the finish:
egg wash (1 egg plus 1 tablespoon water)
coarse sugar
icing sugar
Takes ,
serves 12.
Instructions
Prepare the pastry: Whisk egg and vinegar together in a 1-cup liquid measure. Add cold water until mix measures ½ cup then whisk again. Add 1 or 2 ice cubes to keep this liquid very cold. Set aside.
Sprinkle the salt into the flour. Stir to combine then pour half the quantity into a food processor fitted with a blade attachment. Add the cubed butter and shortening then add remaining flour. Pulse on low speed to form small pea-sized crumbs. Sprinkle 6 tablespoons of liquid onto the flour mixture, then run on low to combine. Add a bit more liquid if the dough seems dry. Once combined, spill the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and bring together by hand. Do not overwork. Form into disc and wrap, refrigerating for at least six hours, preferably overnight. You can also freeze dough, defrosting it later for use.
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Prepare tart shells: On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a ¼-inch thickness. Cut out 4-inch circles using a cookie cutter, glass, cup or bowl. Transfer the rounds of dough to a large, 12-cup non-stick muffin pan, pushing them down into each well.
Cut festive toppers: Gather dough scraps together and roll out to large round. Cut festive shapes out using cookie cutters or small round shapes. Keep regathering and rolling out dough until you have 12 toppers.
Assemble tarts: Spoon about 4 teaspoons of mincemeat into each tart shell. Place a festive topper onto each tart then brush lightly with egg wash. Sprinkle with granulated, coarse or sanding sugar.
Bake tarts for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes before lifting and transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Garnish with a dusting of icing sugar.
Mince Pies
Ingredients
For the tart pastry:
2¼ cups cake and pastry flour or unbleached all-purpose flour (322g)
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ cup butter, cold (115g)
½ cup vegetable shortening or lard, cold (95g)
1 egg
1 tablespoon white vinegar
6-8 tablespoons cold water
extra flour for rolling
For the filling:
550g mincemeat (about 2½ - 3 cups)
For the finish:
egg wash (1 egg plus 1 tablespoon water)
coarse sugar
icing sugar
Directions
Prepare the pastry: Whisk egg and vinegar together in a 1-cup liquid measure. Add cold water until mix measures ½ cup then whisk again. Add 1 or 2 ice cubes to keep this liquid very cold. Set aside.
Sprinkle the salt into the flour. Stir to combine then pour half the quantity into a food processor fitted with a blade attachment. Add the cubed butter and shortening then add remaining flour. Pulse on low speed to form small pea-sized crumbs. Sprinkle 6 tablespoons of liquid onto the flour mixture, then run on low to combine. Add a bit more liquid if the dough seems dry. Once combined, spill the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and bring together by hand. Do not overwork. Form into disc and wrap, refrigerating for at least six hours, preferably overnight. You can also freeze dough, defrosting it later for use.
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Prepare tart shells: On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a ¼-inch thickness. Cut out 4-inch circles using a cookie cutter, glass, cup or bowl. Transfer the rounds of dough to a large, 12-cup non-stick muffin pan, pushing them down into each well.
Cut festive toppers: Gather dough scraps together and roll out to large round. Cut festive shapes out using cookie cutters or small round shapes. Keep regathering and rolling out dough until you have 12 toppers.
Assemble tarts: Spoon about 4 teaspoons of mincemeat into each tart shell. Place a festive topper onto each tart then brush lightly with egg wash. Sprinkle with granulated, coarse or sanding sugar.
Bake tarts for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes before lifting and transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Garnish with a dusting of icing sugar.
Mince Pies
5 / 5. 1
Festive mincemeat in our most tender, flaky pastry, topped with pastry snowflakes…
Grab a muffin pan and a few festive cookie cutters; we’re making INDIVIDUAL MINCE PIES.
We’re not sure how to rank the comments we receive every time we make these INDIVIDUAL MINCE PIES. People say, “They’re gorgeous!”, “How cute!”, “Beautiful!” and “So pretty!”. And then after their first bite, we heard stuff like, “OMG!”, “I love this!” and “Are these ever wonderful!” Since we’re laying on the praise, we better chime in too with “Easy to make!”, “Great addition to the holiday baking tray!” and “These taste like the holidays!”
Before we offer tips on making them, here’s the overview:
We’ll crack open a container of our FESTIVE MINCEMEAT, ribboned with fruits and nuts.
We’re cutting the pastry into rounds to form tarts in a muffin tin, then adding the fragrant mincemeat.
Finally, we’ll add a holiday-inspired pastry topper and bake the tarts to perfection.
Sounds easy, right? It is! Here’s how to make the absolute best INDIVIDUAL MINCE PIES:
INGREDIENTS
Wait a second, Nik, you sure that’s it? Absolutely! All you need to make individual mince pies the traditional way is a good, flaky pastry recipe (pick ours!) and seriously scrumptious mincemeat (again, pick ours!) plus sugars, water and an egg. The trick to this recipe is to have everything at the ready before you assemble the pies and bake them. Seriously, this mince pie recipe gets a five-star rating for ease of preparation.
PIE DOUGH
The above photo shows the ingredients needed to make a flaky, buttery pastry that pairs perfectly with the filling. If you have a sense of déjà vu while reading the post, this is the same pastry we crafted for our famous WORLD’S BEST BUTTER TARTS RECIPE. Although similar to our ALL-BUTTER PIE DOUGH, we did make three minor adjustments.
First, we reduced the quantity of pastry flour—unbleached all-purpose flour works too—by a ¼ cup. This yields a more tender pastry. We also added equal amounts of butter and vegetable shortening. The use of shortening ups the texture and flakiness of the pastry. Please note that lard can also be used instead of the shortening. The final adjustment was to streamline the process where the dough is made in a food processor. This keeps the pastry portion of the program extra easy.
FESTIVE MINCEMEAT RECIPE
We’ve really come to love our own MINCEMEAT recipe. It’s the same one used in this sensational MINCEMEAT FRANGIPANE TART. Fingers crossed you have some on hand, but if you don’t, we’ll give you an out; go ahead and use store-bought mince pie filling if you’re in a pinch, even though ours is way, way better.
What makes it so memorable? This MINCEMEAT RECIPE is made without beef suet or any type of meat. Our vegetarian version is a mixture of apples, candied mixed peel, almonds, orange peel, lemon, dried black currants, raisins, brown sugar, plus classic holiday spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. Oh, and there’s butter and cognac, too. It has many of the flavours we most commonly associate with the Christmas season. Feel free to add cloves, ginger and mace into the spice blend, if you so desire. You’ll only need about 2½ cups for this recipe. Make sure to give the bowl of mincemeat a stir before filling the cups.
MUFFIN TIN AND COOKIE CUTTERS
The above image is a great snapshot of the tools you’ll need to make homemade mince pies. During the testing of this recipe, we found a coated, standard 12-cup muffin tin or tart tins worked best. Sure, you can make mini tarts, but it will be more time-consuming plus that reduced portion size will leave guests jonesing for more. We also included fluted biscuit cutters and an assortment of festive cookie cutters as inspiration. You can cut the pastry circles using the mouth of a 4-inch glass or the fluted biscuit cutters for a more whimsical look. The seasonal cookie cutters are to inspire you to top the pies with a motif that you love.
ROLLING OUT THE DOUGH
So by now you’ve realized we’re not making individual pies using store-bought shells. Though doing so may seem like a smart timesaver, we felt using them takes away from the charm and superior flavours of this made-from-scratch recipe. Instead, we’re using a disc of homemade dough that we made weeks ago, wrapped in plastic wrap, and froze. If using dough made in advance, place it in the fridge the night before you intend to make the pies. This will give the dough ample time to thaw, so you’ll be able to roll it out like a pro. I also like to bring the dough from the fridge, maybe half an hour before I begin, to bring it to room temperature.
When rolling the dough out, we suggest holding the disc in your hands for a few moments to warm it, then rolling it out to a large rectangular shape, about ¼-inch thick. Don’t forget to sprinkle your work surface or pastry board with flour as well as your rolling pin and the dough itself. This helps keep the pastry workable.
CUTTING SHAPES
Once the dough is rolled to a large rectangular shape, take a glass or large biscuit cutter, cutting out 12 circles. Transfer the crust to the muffin tins, pushing the pastry down into the bottom of each cup. The next step is to gather up the scraps of dough, shape a new disc and roll it out. Cut 12 festive pastry toppers and set them to the side.
FILLING THE CUPS
Filling the cups is easy. Stir up the mincemeat, then use a spoon or two to add a few dollops of filling into each cup. The quantity is about four tablespoons worth of filling for each pie.
Don’t press the filling down, leave it kind of loose; it’ll settle as the pies bake.
ADDING A FESTIVE MOTIF
Adding a pastry topper to the pies really makes them festive. I chose to cut the pastry into the shape of a snowflake, but other shapes work as well. Whether you add a small fluted circle, a star, a bell, a reindeer head or a snowflake, the pastry covering, placed on top of each pie, elevates the look of these miniature pies into something exciting and festive.
ADDING EGG WASH AND SUGAR
The final enhancement to this holiday baking recipe is to give the toppers on each pie a brush of egg wash and sprinkle or sparkling sugar. You can use granulated sugar, turbinado or a more crystallized sanding sugar. We never see this wonderful detail in store-bought mince pies!
BAKING
Baking these INDIVIDUAL MINCE PIES is also easy. Simply transfer the muffin tin to the oven, baking the pies for 20 minutes. The filling will be bubbling, and the pastry baked to a pleasing golden brown. When they come out of the oven, let them cool for about 15 minutes in the pan before coaxing them out of their wells.
You may need to run a thin knife around the edge to release the pies from the tin. Once removed, place the pies on a wire rack to cool completely.
ENJOY
Final festive enhancement for these traditional mince pies is to dust the tops with a light dusting of icing sugar. This gives the pies a wonderful look that entices guests to enjoy tout de suite!
BTW, in the off chance they don’t all disappear within hours of making, store leftover tarts in an airtight container, enjoying them within five days.
Last reminder, send some love our way and subscribe to our monthly newsletter HERE where we share our top recipes and give a sneak peek at upcoming posts. You’ll also receive Gather, our mid-month missive focused on ideas to entertain family and friends.
These INDIVIDUAL MINCE PIES are as sweet and festive as our wishes for you this holiday season!
Cook Mode Use cook mode to keep your screen on while cooking.
Ingredients
For the tart pastry:
2¼ cups cake and pastry flour or unbleached all-purpose flour (322g)
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ cup butter, cold (115g)
½ cup vegetable shortening or lard, cold (95g)
1 egg
1 tablespoon white vinegar
6-8 tablespoons cold water
extra flour for rolling
For the filling:
550g mincemeat (about 2½ - 3 cups)
For the finish:
egg wash (1 egg plus 1 tablespoon water)
coarse sugar
icing sugar
Directions
Prepare the pastry: Whisk egg and vinegar together in a 1-cup liquid measure. Add cold water until mix measures ½ cup then whisk again. Add 1 or 2 ice cubes to keep this liquid very cold. Set aside.
Sprinkle the salt into the flour. Stir to combine then pour half the quantity into a food processor fitted with a blade attachment. Add the cubed butter and shortening then add remaining flour. Pulse on low speed to form small pea-sized crumbs. Sprinkle 6 tablespoons of liquid onto the flour mixture, then run on low to combine. Add a bit more liquid if the dough seems dry. Once combined, spill the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and bring together by hand. Do not overwork. Form into disc and wrap, refrigerating for at least six hours, preferably overnight. You can also freeze dough, defrosting it later for use.
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Prepare tart shells: On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a ¼-inch thickness. Cut out 4-inch circles using a cookie cutter, glass, cup or bowl. Transfer the rounds of dough to a large, 12-cup non-stick muffin pan, pushing them down into each well.
Cut festive toppers: Gather dough scraps together and roll out to large round. Cut festive shapes out using cookie cutters or small round shapes. Keep regathering and rolling out dough until you have 12 toppers.
Assemble tarts: Spoon about 4 teaspoons of mincemeat into each tart shell. Place a festive topper onto each tart then brush lightly with egg wash. Sprinkle with granulated, coarse or sanding sugar.
Bake tarts for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes before lifting and transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Garnish with a dusting of icing sugar.
Until Cottage Season
