Mincemeat Pies: Christmas Tradition in Miniature

These delicacies are justly popular in the English-speaking world at Christmas.

The sweet filling is traditionally known as "mincemeat", and as recently as the eighteenth century recipes for larger pies literally combined meat in generous quantities with the more expected fruit and spices.

Like many other food traditions of the British Isles, these are now viewed as somewhat exotic by my American friends. However mincemeat pies were once well established in North America.

The first American cookbook, Amelia Simmons' American Cookery (1796), features a mincemeat pie recipe calling for "Four pound boil'd beef, chopped fine and salted; six pound of raw apple chopped, also, one pound beef suet, one quart of wine or rich sweet cyder, mace and cinnamon, of each one ounce, two pound sugar, a nutmeg, two pounds raisins, bake in paste No. 3, three-fourths of an hour".

The modern and miniature version is ususally, vegetarian apart from the presence of suet in some traditional and store-bought mince mixtures. Matthew Evans, who writes in Melbourne's Age newspaper, suggests a "modern" fruit mince without this addition, adapted below.

Any good crust recipe will work for the pies, but a high sugar content helps softness as well as sweetness (unlike Mrs Simmons "paste No. 3" which was short, but unsweetened). The dough is cut into circles, which are placed in a suitable tray (those for small muffins work well), filled with the fruit mince and then covered in whole or part with a straightforward crust lid, or festive shapes that leave the filling partly exposed.

Fruit Mince
1 whole lemon
1 apple
200g mixed dried fruit (raisins, currants etc)
100g brown sugar
100g walnuts, finely chopped
3 Tbps whisky
2 tsps mixed spice (cinnamon, allspice and a little nutmeg ideally)

Combine dried fruit, spices, sugar, brandy and walnuts. Juice the lemon, then boil the remaining peel and pith in 2 cups of water for half an hour or until soft. Chop very finely, or process until not quite pureed. Grate the apple and add to the fruit mixture with lemon juice and chopped lemon. Leave at least overnight - it stores well.

Pastry
200 g flour*
100g pure icing sugar
140g of butter or margarine**, chilled and cubed
1 egg yolk
Iced water

Put flour and icing sugar in a food processor and pulse to combine. Add butter and process just until combined; add egg yolk and pulse again. Turn dough out onto a floured board or bench, and form into a ball; if it does not hold together, add a few drops of cold water just until the dough can form a clump. Knead lightly and chill for an hour or more.

Pies
Mincemeat
Pastry
Milk or water for brushing
Light brown sugar or icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Divide dough in two unequal pieces, two-thirds and one third. Roll the larger piece out on a floured surface (if sticky, sit it between two sheets of cling wrap and proceed). When 1/2 cm (1/4") thick, cut circles with a cutter to suit the size of your pan's indentations. Press the bases gently into the pans, then spoon filling in, not too much. Roll the additional dough out to the same thickness, and cut lids or shapes to cover/decorate. Brush around edges of the pie bases with milk or water before placing tops on, pressing gently to seal.

If desired, brush tops with a little more milk and sprinkle some light brown sugar across the tops; alternatively leave plain, with the option to dust with icing sugar after baking.

Bake in a moderate oven (180C/350F) for 15 minutes, remove carefully from pans and cool on a wire rack.

*Whole grain flours do work, and if you enjoy the coarser texture and richer colour go ahead.
**The results are perhaps not quite as good, but our lactose-intolerant household has used a vegan margarine (Nuttelex, for the Australian readers) successfully.