I had a lot of ingredients left over from my Christmas pudding and realised that many of them were found in the recipe for mincemeat – that is, the traditional English mince pie filling, a sweet pastry that is nothing to do with Shepherd’s pie or spaghetti Bolognese!
My fiancé loves mince pies though I’ve never been keen, so I decided to make a bit of a twist on the idea and make a giant one – but to make it a bit healthier, I wanted to make a mince tart rather than a pie, with a lattice top.
With something so traditional as mincemeat who else to turn to but Delia Smith? I used this recipe
and did leave the flavours overnight to infuse. However, I left out the suet as I didn’t have any, and I’m sure when I made mince pies before I didn’t add suet – I’m not sure these days it’s really something people use in cooking. The mixture turned out perfectly well without me doing this.
Lack of time meant that I used ready made shortcrust pastry. I lined the bottom of a pie tin and spooned in the mincemeat filling. I used my lattice cutter to make the top of the pie, though I'm still not very good with getting to grips with it! I brushed the top with milk, and cooked it in the oven for about 25 minutes until the top was golden brown. My fiancé really enjoyed it – while I stuck to an apple crumble as I had fruit that needed using up, but he doesn’t like apple!
I’m sending this to the Food Year Linkup, hosted by Charlotte's Lively Kitchen, as it's a very Christmassy recipe.
There is nutmeg in my mincemeat mixture so I'm sending this to Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter I have chosen this month is N.
I'm also sending this to Tea Time Treats, hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Janie at the Hedgecombers, as their theme is sugar and spice.
