EASY PEASY MINCE PIES

I've called this recipe "Easy Peasy" because it really is, the hardest part is opening the jar of mincemeat!!! You won't even need to rest your "pastry" or even roll it out if you don't want to!

Now for many of you aficionados out there you'll spot straight away that the pastry recipe isn't a true pastry, the pastry is leaning more toward a "shortbread", it will crack and crumble a little but it makes the best mince pies ever.

SHOPPING LIST

This recipe will make 12 mince pies

1. 350g of Good quality plain flour

2. 100g of Caster sugar/ Golden Caster sugar

3. 225g of cold, diced salted butter

4. A beaten egg for brushing your mince pies

5. Extra Sugar for dusting the tops

6. A jar of good quality mincemeat (or see my recipe for homemade mincemeat)

7. A splash of brandy (optional)

METHOD

1. Firstly set your oven to 185c

2. Put the flour, butter and sugar into your food processor and pulse to bring the mixture together (you can if you want rub the butter into the flour and sugar by hand, but this will take a little longer)

3. Tip your mixture out onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead to bring the mixture together.

4. Now there's absolutely no need to rest this dough, you can use it straight away

5. Remember what I said, you don't even need to roll this out!!

6. Take a shallow mince pie tin, and taking small walnut size balls of the dough, gently press the dough into the pie tin

7. The dough will be really easy to mould