Dairy-free, Soya-free
Serves: 8 people
So I'm all done with moving house (which was unbelievably stressful, let me tell you!), and I'm back to baking. Christmas is a busy time for me. I make homemade Christmas hampers as presents for family, full of jams and sweeties, each year. I've just spent the last two days making fudge and pectin stock for jam, and there's much more to come. So I won't get much time for any dairy-free baking. However, I have managed one recipe, and it's a good, Christmassy one.
Mince pies. My mum makes the best mince pies! It's all in the pastry! I can't abide the sweet pastry pies you buy in shops. It's just wrong! Mince pies should have a short, buttery, savoury pastry to compliment the very sweet mincemeat. If my mum doesn't bake any, then I make some myself. I very rarely buy them in the shops.
This year I wanted to go one step further and make my own mincemeat, making it as luscious and boozy as possible. I found a recipe, tweaked it a little, and made it into a huge mincemeat pie to get the maximum amount of filling as possible in there. Served warm with custard it was just amazing!
Here is the recipe for the mincemeat I worked from: http://www.foodnetwork.co.uk/recipes/boozy-mincemeat.html. I made a few changes because I couldn't get hold of any dried pears, used raisins rather than sultanas, and didn't have quite enough raisins in the cupboard. It worked out really well! I have three jars of mincemeat left waiting to be used for mince pies (you should really jar it up and keep it for a couple of weeks before using it, to let the flavour develop, but I made this recipe two days after making the mincemeat).
Ingredients:
Mincemeat:
- 1 large cooking apple (peeled, cored and grated)
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 110g dried apricots (chopped)
- 100g dried papaya (finely chopped)
- 110g dried figs (chopped)
- 110g dried dates (chopped)
- 120g glace cherries (chopped)
- juice and grated zest of 3/4 of an orange
- 375g raisins
- 4tbsp bitter orange Marmalade
- 175g light soft brown sugar
- 175g demerara sugar
- 3tsp ground mixed spice
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 140ml dark rum
- 130ml brandy
- 225g plain flour
- pinch of salt
- 120g non-dairy, non-soya spread
- cold water
- 1 egg (beaten) - optional
Method:
Mincemeat:
- Toss the grated apples in the lemon juice and set aside.
- Place all the remaining ingredients into a large bowl and mix well. Add the grated apples and mix.
- Cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave for two days, stirring occasionally.
- You can now use the mincemeat, but it's better if you pot it into sterilised jars and leave it for two weeks.
Pastry:
- Place the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl. Rub in the spread using your fingers until the mix resembles breadcrumbs.
- Add the water a tiny bit at a time, stirring, until the mix comes together into a dough (make sure you don't add too much water!). Place the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes before using.
- Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas Mark 5. Grease and line a 20cm tart tin.
- Roll the dough out on a floured board and place into the tin, cutting off the trimmings to reserve for later. Blind bake the pie case for 15-20 minutes.
- Add enough mincemeat to the pie to completely fill the case (the more the better!).
- Roll out the pastry trimmings and cut into 2cm strips to form a lattice. (This is a bit tricky to get the hang of, but I managed to do it the first time after seeing it done many times on Masterchef). Stick the strips to the pie case using water.
- Brush the pie with beaten egg and place into the oven for around 30 minutes until the pastry is golden.
- Serve warm with custard, or leave to cool and eat cold with some boozy cream. Yum yum!
