Golden Shortbread Mince Pies
I love Christmas cooking and one of my favourite recipes is for my shortbread mince pies. The pastry on these really is like a buttery, crumbly shortbread biscuit that is so delicious, you won’t want to stop at just one!
DIFFICULTY: 3/5
Makes 24 mince pies
- 225g Unsalted Butter (plus extra for greasing the trays)
- 320g Plain Flour
- 30g Ground Almonds
- 100g Caster Sugar
- Pinch of Salt
- 1 Small Jar Mincemeat
- 1 Egg
- Icing Sugar and/or edible gold spray to decorate
10 minutes to make and 15 minutes to bake in an 180degree fan oven
- Remove the butter from the fridge 30minutes before you want to make your mince pies so that it is still a little bit cold but not too hard.
- Dice the butter and add to a mixing bowl with the flour and ground almonds. Using your hands, work the butter into the flour until the mixture is crumbly and starting to come together.
- Add the sugar and a pinch of salt and continue to work with your hands until you form a ball of pastry.
- The pastry will still be quite crumbly but this is the correct texture so don’t worry and you haven’t gone wrong! Take a ball of the pastry and place on a chopping board or your worktop and push out with your hands to flatten it. Your hands are much better than a rolling pin here because of the flaky texture.
- Using a medium sized pastry cutter (or you could use a small tumbler to get a disc shape), cut out 24 discs of pastry.
- Grease your tins with a little of the remaining butter and add a disc of pastry to each hole, gently pushing the pastry down into the bottom and sides of the tin, before adding a tsp of mincemeat onto each pastry disc.
- With the remaining pastry, using whatever cutters you have, cut shapes and add to the top of the mincemeat. If you don’t have pastry cutters, you could cut smaller circles of pastry to top your mince pies.
- Brush the tops of the mince pies with beaten egg and place in the oven for 15minutes or until they become lightly golden.
- Allow to cool before topping each mince pie with icing sugar or edible gold spray (I use Dr. Oetker) - I find a mixture of each looks nice!
