It’s day fifteenofthe Eats Amazing Advent Calendarand today's recipe is for some classically festive mini mince pie puffs.
It wouldn't be Christmas without a mince pie (or ten!), and this cheats recipe for little bite sized mince pies couldn't be easier. The cute little mini pies are fun to make with children and perfect for parties, festive snacks or even to pop in a lunch box for a lovely Christmassy treat. Best of all, as they are miniature versions, you've got every excuse to eat more than onemince pie in a sitting!
Mini Mince Pie Puffs
Ingredients (makes around 30):
1 320g sheet ready-rolled puff pastry
⅓ jar good quality ready made mincemeat
1 egg
Method:
Preheatyour oven to 190°C (Gas mark 5/375°F). Line 2 baking trays with grease proof or baking paper.
Crack the egg into a small bowl and lightly whisk.
Unroll the sheet of pastry. Using a small cookie cutter*, cut out as many shapes as possible from the sheet,cutting each shape as close the previous one as possible to maximise the number cut.
Place half of the shapes on the lined baking trays,making sure there is plenty of space around each one. Lightly brush them all with the egg.
Topeach pastry shape with a small dollop of mincemeat - be careful not to use too much as it's easy to overfill them.
Take the other half of the pastry shapes. Lightly brush each one with egg, and place it, egg side down, on the mincemeat topped pastry. Gently press around the edges to seal.
Using a small fork, press all around the very edge of each shape to seal further. I'd recommend using a child's fork if you have one, for the smaller tines.
You may find that some of the filling escapes - I went around mine with a bit of kitchen paper to mop up the biggest bits, but it doesn't matter too much.
Lightly brush the top of each pastry with egg. Using the tip of a small sharp knife, cut a tiny cross into the top of each pastry to allow steam to escape.
Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes until cooked through, puffed up and golden.
Leave to cool for a couple of minutes, then carefully peel from the trays and placeon a wire rack to cool for 5-10 minutes.
Serve warm or cold and enjoy!
NOTES:I used a small flower cutter for cutting m shapes, but a circle would work just as well. The cutter I used is about 3.5cm in diameter.
As I mentioned above, this post is part ofthe Eats Amazing Fun Food Advent Calendar. Every day from the beginning of Decemberuntil Christmas I’m sharing a new festive food idea here on the blog and I’m announcing them over on thenewAdvent Calendar pagetoo, so do click on the link, bookmark it and don’t forget to pop back tomorrowto see the latest new post!
Cute bite sized mini mince pie puffs - easy cheats recipe for puff pastry mince pies - fun for Christmas party food and snacks.
Prep Time12 minutesmins
Cook Time12 minutesmins
0 minutesmins
Total Time24 minutesmins
Course: Dessert, Lunch, Snack
Cuisine: British
Servings: 30puffs
Author: Grace
Ingredients
1 320gsheet ready-rolled puff pastry
⅓jar good quality ready made mincemeat
1egg
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 190°C (Gas mark 5/375°F). Line 2 baking trays with grease proof or baking paper.
Crack the egg into a small bowl and lightly whisk.
Unroll the sheet of pastry. Using a small cookie cutter*, cut out as many shapes as possible from the sheet, cutting each shape as close the previous one as possible to maximise the number cut.
Place half of the shapes on the lined baking trays, making sure there is plenty of space around each one. Lightly brush them all with the egg.
op each pastry shape with a small dollop of mincemeat – be careful not to use too much as it’s easy to overfill them.
Take the other half of the pastry shapes. Lightly brush each one with egg, and place it, egg side down, on the mincemeat topped pastry. Gently press around the edges to seal.
Using a small fork, press all around the very edge of each shape to seal further. I’d recommend using a child’s fork if you have one, for the smaller tines.
You may find that some of the filling escapes – I went around mine with a bit of kitchen paper to mop up the biggest bits, but it doesn’t matter too much.
Lightly brush the top of each pastry with egg. Using the tip of a small sharp knife, cut a tiny cross into the top of each pastry to allow steam to escape.
Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes until cooked through, puffed up and golden.
Leave to cool for a couple of minutes, then carefully peel from the trays and place on a wire rack to cool for 5-10 minutes.
Serve warm or cold.
Notes
NOTES: I used a small flower cutter for cutting m shapes, but a circle would work just as well. The cutter I used is about 3.5cm in diameter.
I hope you enjoyed this fun recipe, please pin it if you did! For more delicious and fun food ideas for the festive season,check out the Christmas Food section here on the Eats Amazing blog or pop over and follow my ChristmasPinterest boards for lots more fun ideas from around the web; Christmas, Cute Christmas Food Ideas and Healthy Christmas Food.
Mincemeat is a mixture of chopped dried fruit, distilled spirits and spices, and often beef suet, usually used as a pie or pastry filling. Mincemeat formerly contained meat, notably beef or venison. Many modern recipes replace the suet with vegetable shortening.
The reason mincemeat is called meat is because that's exactly what it used to be: most often mutton, but also beef, rabbit, pork or game. Mince pies were first served in the early middle ages, and the pies were quite sizeable, filled with a mixture of finely minced meat, chopped up fruit and a preserving liquid.
One bite of a home-made shortcrust pastry mince pie and you'll never want to buy them again. Now you've nailed the pastry, put it to good use with one of our mince pie recipes including date and apple, brownie and frangipane versions.
Markham's recipe called for an entire leg of mutton and three pounds of suet which were mixed with salt, cloves, mace, currants, raisins, prunes, dates, and orange peel, a list of ingredients that, save for the meat, which is remarkably like that used today.
It has been claimed that eating the snack is illegal in England if done so on Christmas Day. The tradition comes from the time of Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s, when mince pies were banned at Christmas, along with other tasty treats. Cromwell wanted to tackle gluttony in England.
In the US, there are no laws regulating what foods fictional characters can consume, transport or distribute. Mince pies are not commonly consumed in the US outside of the New England region. Perhaps if more Americans were familiar with them they would be banned.
And it turns out we are not alone! With the national average for mince pie devourment sitting at a hefty 19 per person1, and total UK annual consumption estimates sitting somewhere between 800m and a staggering 1 billion2, it's clear that we're a nation of mince pie lovers. Or are we?
By the 18th century it was more likely to be tongue or even tripe, and in the 19th century it was minced beef. It was not until the late Victorian period and early 20th Century that mince pies dropped the meat and had all fruit fillings (albeit with suet). Even today there are traditions associated with mince pies.
A mince pie, though originally containing meat, is a sweet pie, with pastry top and bottom, filled with a sweet mixture of dried fruit, peel, commonly alcohol like brandy, and small pieces of suet( an animal fat, and reminder of a mince pie's meat origins). This sweet mixture is ( confusingly) called 'mincemeat'.
Mince pies are high in calories, saturated fat and sugar because of the pastry case, as well as the suet and sugar in the mincemeat filling. If you're baking your own, only use pastry for the base and leave the top open, just add a small star of pastry or use a lower-fat pastry, such as filo.
Mince pie: A couple of these will count as a fruit portion. But this isn't the wisest idea, given that this also amounts to around 520 calories, half your daily saturated fat limit and 40 per cent of the total sugars you should eat a day.
By the 18th century it was more likely to be tongue or even tripe, and in the 19th century it was minced beef. It was not until the late Victorian period and early 20th Century that mince pies dropped the meat and had all fruit fillings (albeit with suet). Even today there are traditions associated with mince pies.
They are two completely different kinds of pies. Mince pie, also known as mincemeat pie, is made of fruits and contains no meat. It is sweet. A meat pie is savory or spicy and is usually a fried pie, filled with ground meat and onions, spices like cumin, chili peppers, etc.
Traditionally mince pies used to be meat and suet (yummy!!) and some recipes still call for the latter but shop-bought ones tend to contain butter and eggs.
A good mince pie is a delicately spiced, sumptuously light fruit filling encased in a buttery, crumbly crust. They're like souffles in that they're incredibly easy to do badly, but when baked properly they are a gustatory delight!
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