Christmas Mincemeat pies

How to make Christmas sweet mincemeat pies, simple step by step instructions, from start to finish.

Ingredients

Making the Mincemeat filling:
Add all the ingredients to a suitable size sauce pan, bring to a simmer, and cook for 10 minutes with the lid on, allow to completely cool before using it in the recipe, this sweet mincemeat may be made months ahead of time, and stored in a sterilised and sealed jar.
Add the flour, butter, icing sugar, Orange zest and salt to your food processor, pulse the machine until you have a fine breadcrumb consistency.
Drizzle in the beaten egg, run the machine until it all comes together, this should only take a few seconds.
Flatten your pastry, wrap it in parchment or cling film, refrigerate for at least 15 minutes.
For this recipe you’ll need a greased 12 cup tart tin, see video for my example of chosen tin.
Roll out your dough until it is 3mm or ⅛” thick.
Using a scalloped cutter that is bigger than the pin moulds, cut out the 12 pie bases.
Reroll all the pastry scraps to cut out the lids for the pies, see the video for the shapes I used.
At this point, preheat your oven to 180°C / 355°F / Gas mark 4.

Place the bases in the greased pie tin cups, prick each one 4 times with a fork, this is called docking the pastry, It prevents the pastry base from bubbling up in the oven.
Divide the 400g of mincemeat mixture between the 12 pies.
Place the lids in decorative lids in the middle of each pie, lightly brush the lids with egg-wash.
Get them into the preheated oven, and set your timer for 16 minutes.
Once the time is up, remove the tray from the oven, and gently lift each pie out of the tin and on to a wire rack.
Dust each one with a little icing or powdered sugar.
Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving, either on their own, or with a creamy brandy sauce.
Enjoy.