A classic Christmas British dessert, using grain & gluten free pastry. Even better if you make your own mincemeat.
Mince Pies
It’s OK I have mince pies in the house. Christmas can finally begin.
Earlier this week I shared my mincemeat recipe, and now I bring you the pastry to house it. Whilst eating mincemeat straight out of the jar is kinda fun, it’s probably a more well rounded idea to eat it encased in buttery flaky pastry.
We’ve been experiementing with all sorts of different grains and alternative ways to bake at chef school, and so I decided to have a go at making a grain and gluten free nut pastry for these mince pies. I used a combination of almond and coconut flours for my grain-free flour mix which were stuck together with butter and an egg. Then for some extra Christmas fanciness I threw some orange zest into the mix. I like using butter in baking because you can really taste the difference.
Not only could I not find any mince pies or decent mincemeat in America, in 3 different cookware shops I couldn’t even find the right sort of baking pan (do you guys not make jam tarts or shallow small cupcakes?). So, I improvised with a mini muffin pan. These are way more delectable than the shallow, wider pies I made last year. I like mini food. It means you can eat twice as many.
Mince Pies
I made these for a holiday party. I lost count the number of times I had to declare these vegetarian, confirm there is in fact no mince in mince pies and and point out that they are a dessert. They went down as well as I’d hoped. See, us Brits do know how to cook tasty food. Dare anyone tell me British food is bland again.
For my mincemeat recipe click here
- 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)
- 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!
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
If I don’t blog again before Christmas (I’m toying with taking a break until 2014) then have a wonderfully happy and healthy time. I am so grateful for each and everyone one of you who reads and cooks from my blog, you’ve all helped to make 2013 my most successful blogging year to date.
Just came across your blog and really like how you mix and match up ingredients in an interesting way.
Thanks for sharing.
Amie.
Thanks Amie – great to have your comments and see you enjoy what I put out there!
Should it be 1/2 tsp. of baking soda or baking powder? The ingredient list and directions say two different things.
Thank you for being so observant. I am mortified I hadn’t noticed this before now. It should be baking soda in the ingredients and the method! Thank you.
I have made these a few times now and every time they get better, will definately make these again every year!!
Hi there!
I’m wondering if you think one might be able to replace the apples with another fruit… (possibly peach or pear?) For someone who can’t eat apples due to allergy.
Thanks for any input!
Hi! Pear would certainly work, but no need to add any at all if you don’t want. You can just use more mincemeat! It’s just my cheat to bulk it out a bit 🙂