The best mince pie pastry ever?

LegalBlonde

miss_cupcake wrote: »

I made a batch of these lastnight, and wow, they are brilliant! It's tradition in my family that I always make the mince pies the week before Christmas and in previous years I've relied on ready-made pastry... Well, not any more! My boyfriend ate 5 (yes, 5 :eek: and he claimed he didn't like them before tasting these!) throughout the course of the evening yesterday, the rest have been secretly stashed away in the freezer. They'll journey all the way from Hertfordshire to Scotland with me on Christmas eve and I can't wait to share them with my family when I get there Thanks for sharing this recipe!

when are you taking yours out of freezer? or to anyone, when should i take out of freezer? i am making some tonight, travelling on Sunday night and probably want to give out Mon or Tues....will they be okay ?and when should i take out of freezer? i am back from the dizzy heights of the boots hat box thread to get on with my OS mince pies:rotfl:

miss_cupcake_2

I think I'll just take mine out of the freezer the morning I leave the house (xmas eve) and hope that they'll defrost nicely during the 7 hour car journey :eek: We won't be eating them till Christmas day either way.

I don't imagine they take too long to defrost so I'd take yours out of the freezer the night before you need them

LegalBlonde

ok here goes wish me luck! x

LegalBlonde

.....phew okay finally ready to put in oven! almost lost faith a bit with sticky pastry but lots of flour sorted that.....think there will be one perfect one as went from left to right - perfecting base layer towards end, right to left putting mince meat in - perfected towards end, and up and down doing tops, perfected at end - that one in the middle is mine!!! will update in 20 min.....

LegalBlonde

okay i burnt my tongue but so worth it - absolutely delicious - i can't believe that I made this pastry!!!!

Nadeshka

I must add my thanks for this wonderful recipe! :beer:
This is the second year I have used it in making mince pies and the pastry is always scrumptious. I make my mincemeat early each year and make a first batch to test it and from then on I get asked everyday by my housemates when I'm making more (and now I'm home it's my family!)

I've already "converted" two people who said they didn't like mince pies, tried them and then loved them and wanted seconds. I've had to resort to making bigger ones in ramekins otherwise they disappear faster than I can make them!

Just talking about it makes me want to whip up a few more.

thistledome

This might be a stupid question, but how thin do you have to roll the pastry out? How many mm thin? I really want to try this recipe but my pastry has always been awful (tough and hard) and I haven't made any for years.

TIA

Bunny200

thin, thin, thin, almost paper thin
I can't make pastry but I can make this recipe!

Gangstabird

morganlefay wrote: »

AAAARGH I need help. I've just made 36 of these and it all went fine tho pastry a tiny bit prone to crack when put in the tins. I have 3 tins - two oldish but with non-stick surface and one brand new Lakeland one. I greased them all with the trex but when cooked only the Lakeland ones came out OK (I just put the rack over the top, turned the whole lot over and the pies fell out neatly.) The ones in the old tins all stuck - despite non-stick and greasing - what do other people do ? At present I'm tempted to buy two more Lakeland tins and be done with it as it's wasted a whole morning and OH and I are going to get very fat eating up the collapsed disasters. I suspect the mincemeat leaked a bit through the crasks (tho I did patch them up) and caused the sticking but I'm very unhappy as they taste wonderful but look awful, and lakeland tins v expensive. They were all going to go into the freezer but now I'll have to make more as I can't salvage enough. has anyone tried using silicone 'tins' ? HELP PLEASE ! :mad:

You can still use the old tins. Grease and flour them in that order and it's very similar to using baking paper. HTHs:D

morganlefay

Thanks Gangstabird - I've never tried greasing and flouring the tins so I'll now take the dud tins back out of the 'going to Oxfam' bag and try doing that ! You've probably just saved me quite a lot of £££££s, so many thanks ! :beer: