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
350g of Good quality plain flour
100g of Caster sugar/ Golden Caster sugar
225g of cold, diced salted butter
A beaten egg for brushing your mince pies
Extra Sugar for dusting the tops
A jar of good quality mincemeat (or see my recipe for homemade mincemeat)
A splash of brandy (optional)
METHOD
Firstly set your oven to 185c
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)
Tip your mixture out onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead to bring the mixture together.
Now there's absolutely no need to rest this dough, you can use it straight away
Remember what I said, you don't even need to roll this out!!
Take a shallow mince pie tin, and taking small walnut size balls of the dough, gently press the dough into the pie tin
The dough will be really easy to mould
At this point I would open my jar of mincemeat and stir in a good splash of brandy! Well it is Christmas!!!!
Now take a good teaspoon of your mincemeat and place into each round
Take smaller pieces of dough and gently shape into flat rounds and place onto the tops, gently press to seal your mince pies
Brush each one with the beaten egg and bake in the oven for 20 minutes
Remove from the oven, you will need to leave them to cool for 5-10 minutes, otherwise the pastry will break up, but once they've cooled slightly they'll come out of the tin no problem
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