Macaroon mincemeat tarts

This recipe is another using up Christmas leftovers and this time it's some mincemeat. I wanted to make something different from mince pies and found this recipe in an old cookbook from the 70s. I'm not going to give the recipe for the shortcrust pastry - everyone has their own favourite one, or you can use Just Rol.

150g s/c pastry [that's 200g flour, 100g fat etc]
4 tbspns mincemeat
2 egg whites
75g caster sugar
75g ground almonds
15g flaked almonds
a few cherries cut in 1/4s

Preheat oven 190C/375F/gas 5

Grease a bun tin.

Roll out the pastry, cut out with a 8cm cutter and line your bun tin. [I cut out 10 cases]
Whisk the egg whites till stiff then fold in the sugar and the ground almonds.
Spoon some of the mixture on top of each tart then sprinkle with some flaked almonds. Put a piece of cherry in the middle.
Bake for about 20 mins, or until golden.

The topping is a good contrast to the soft mincemeat. A recipe to keep.

Read More

Cranberry & Orange Mincemeat

Homemade mincemeat knocks the socks off anything you can buy in the shops.  Fact.  Luckily for me, in the past I've been gifted lovingly made jars of the stuff by friends and family.  But this year as December approached the cupboards were bare.

So I set off in search of a recipe.  The sort of tried and tested one that can't go wrong (but that I would inevitably end up playing around with because I can't help myself).  I thought Delia might hold the key, but melted suet?  What's that all about?  Not for me. 

Whenever I need what I'd refer to as a staple recipe (you know, things like simnel cake, shortbread, lemon curd...) to work from there is a handful of food blogs I tend to turn to. One of them is Gin and Crumpets written by fellow South East London dweller, Jassy.  She writes recipes that work and ones that I want to cook. 

Armed with her wonderful recipe for Apple & Lemon Mincemeat (and some advice along the way) I set about creating my own vat of mincemeat.  For that is what I made, a rather large quantity of mincemeat to see me through the festive season.  I haven't put mine into jars as I reckon it won't be in existence any longer than a couple of weeks, so it's currently residing in a large tupperware in my cupboard.  But you could of course sterilise some jars to store it in or to give away as gifts.

Ingredients

1.2kg mixture of sultanas and raisins (I used Waitrose vine fruit mix)
300g dried cranberries
500g bramley apples (peeled & cored weight - approx 5 medium apples)
300g vegetarian suet
300g golden caster sugar
zest & juice of 3 oranges
zest & juice of 1 unwaxed lemon
200ml brandy
1.5 tsp ground mixed spice
1.5 tsp ground cinnamon

Method

Put the lemon and orange zest in a bowl, cover with boiling water and leave for half an hour.  This will help extract any bitterness.  I use a zester to remove long strips of zest, but if you haven't got one you can either grate the zest using a fine grater or pare the zest with a peeler (taking care not to take too much of the white pith which is bitter).

Mix the dried fruit (sultanas, raisins and cranberries) in a large bowl and pick over to get rid of any stems . 

Drain the lemon and orange zest and chop.  Stir the zest and all of the orange and lemon juice into the dried fruit.

Peel, core and coarsely grate the apples.  Add the grated apples, vegetable suet, sugar, brandy and spices to the dried fruit mixture and stir to mix thoroughly.  The apples go brown pretty quickly when peeled, so I did a few at a time, adding them to the dried fruits as I went along so that the lemon juice prevent them from going brown. 

Leave to stand for a few hours, covered with a tea towel, returning to stir the mincemeat regularly.

If you are just making the mincemeat to use over a couple of weeks then it will keep perfectly well sealed in a plastic container.  If you want to store it in jars to keep it for longer, then fill sterilised jars, seal and store in a cool dark place.

Use to make mince pies.

Huge thanks to Jassy of Gin and Crumpets for her mincemeat guidance.

Read More

Lemony almond mincemeat tartlets

We are great mince pie fans, so I'm always on the lookout for a different version. Found this recipe in a Christmas pull-out from 'Prima' magagazine [from the 80s I think!] . It uses ground almonds in the pastry and it's made in a similar way to one of my favourite small cakes,Welsh cheese cake; by this I mean that you have the pastry shell, then a layer of mincemeat, then the lemon cake layer. In the Welsh cheese cake you'd have the pastry, then jam,  then cake.

This recipe makes 36 pies, but thought this was too many for us,so I halved the recipe, taking the measures to the nearest gram. This is the full recipe.

The pastry:
275g plain flour
75g icing sugar
1 tspn cinnamon
175g butter
50g ground almonds
1 egg yolk

45ml milk

450g jar mincemeat

For the cake filling:

115g butter or margarine
115g caster sugar
175g sr flour
2 large eggs
grated rind of a lemon

Icing:
115g icing sugar
15ml lemon juice

Preheat oven 190C/375F/gas 5

Make the pastry by putting the flour and cinnamon in a bowl and rubbing in the butter. Add the ground almonds then mix in the egg and milk to make a soft dough. Chill the dough in the fridge for half an hour, wrapped in cling film. Then roll out the dough and cut out 36 circles to line bun tins. Put a teaspoonful of mincemeat in each pastry case.

Make the cake by beating all the ingredients together till nice and smooth. It's just a good old sponge mixture.Spoon on top of the mincemeat then smooth the tops. Bake for 20-30 mins till golden. Cool on a wire rack.

I'm not sure that I'd have bothered about the icing if my dil hadn't been here and wanted to do it! I'd have happy with some sifted icing sugar on top. So she did the fancy lines on top by mixing the icing sugar and lemon juice and putting it into an icing bag with a small hole cut out of one corner.

These little pies are really delicious. A great Christmas offering. Next time I'll make the full 36, just with icing sugar on top!

Read More