A classic Christmas British dessert, using grain & gluten free pastry. Even better if you make your own mincemeat.
Ingredients
1.5 cups / 150g of almond flour/ground almonds
½ cup / 75g of coconut flour
1 Tablespoon sugar
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp sea salt
zest of an orange
8 Tbs butter (1 stick) / 115g, frozen. Plus a little extra for greasing
1 egg, lightly whisked
Approx 1.5 cups / 350g of homemade mincemeat (see my recipe)
Instructions
Sieft together the almond & coconut flours with the sugar, baking soda and salt. Stir in the orange zest.
Grate the frozen butter into the flour and mix together with your fingers till a crumb forms. Stir in the egg and bring together the mix with your hands until a dough is formed.
Divide the dough in half, wrap each in film and place in the fridge for 1 hour (or overnight is fine if you want to get to this step the day before as I did.)
Pre heat the oven to 350 F / 175 C, and grease the moulds of a mini muffin pan with a little butter.
Remove the dough from the fridge and place between 2 sheets of baking / parchment paper. Roll over the paper with a rolling pin to flatten out the dough till its pie-crust thin. Using a cookie cutter (or a glass rim - I improvised) cut out 32 circles and lightly press into the muffin pan moulds. The pastry is cumbersome to work with since there is no gluten or sticky grains holding it together so patience required. If the pastry splits just push it back together with your fingers, and use any pastry scraps to fix it up.
Fill up each pie mould with a heaped teaspoon of mincemeat, then using the remainder of the dough cut out 32 stars to top each pie. Use a little water on the dough rim as glue.
Bake in the oven for 12 minutes. Leave to cool in the tins, before gently easing them out. Don't be temped to remove from the tin when they come out of the oven. They WILL fall apart!
Notes
Serve warm or cold (I prefer cold) with creme fraiche, double or coconut cream and a fine dusting of nutmeg
I used Bob's Red Mill coconut flour. Not all brands behave the same so you may need to adjust liquids & flours volume for desired consistency
Recipe by Ceri Jones Chef at https://cerijoneschef.com/mince-pies-grain-free-pastry/