HOW TO MAKE QUICK & EASY MINCE PIES!

07:36

Who hides in the bakery at Christmas?

- Mince Spies!

Hey lovelies! This blog post's a little late but oh well!
Usually at Christmas my Mum and I bake mince pies from scratch, however this year we decided to opt for the quicker and simpler option and so I thought I would blog about it for you.

What you'll need:

-One packet of pre-rolled shortcrust pastry

-Round cutters, you'll need a large cutter and then another of the same kind just slightly smaller

-Flour, just enough for a sprinkling

-Icing sugar

-Mincemeat, ours is brandy and port

-A cake tin with shallow holes, you don't want to use a muffin tin

-A small bowl of water

-A small bowl of milk

-Something to grease your cake tin, either cooking spray or butter

-A rolling pin

-A teaspoon

How to:

Use the larger of the two cutters and begin to cut out your bases, I like to start with 10 and then move on to the tops, there's nothing worse than running out of pastry and ending up with topless mince pies!

*Tip: try to cut the circles as close to the end and each other as possible, this way you can get more out of your pastry.

Once you have cut out all of the bottom parts for you mince pies

, grease your baking tray with whatever you choose, I use butter. Then carefully place them into the baking tray by gently pressing them into place with your fingertips.

Now taking your mince meat, spoon a small teaspoon of the mixture into each mince pie base, I use my little finger to scrape the mixture in, as this causes the least amount of mess on your hands, don't fill the bases too much otherwise they will overspill when cooked later on.

Using the same process as you did for the bases, you now want to do the same but with the smaller cutter for the lids. When you have done this, take a little dab of water on your finger and run this along the edges of the back of each mince pie lid, this helps the lids to stick to the bases.

As demonstrated by my beautiful mother, if necessary you can re-roll your pastry to make extra bases or lids, just use a rolling pin to flatten it out but remember to flour both the rolling pin and the counter so that it doesn't stick.