How to make mince pies

With Christmas coming up (in about 360 days) I decided to bake some mince pies like a girl today. I like mince pies. Do you like mince pies? Would you like to make some mince pies like I did today? Here's my recipe for you. With a handy hint at the end.

My Recipe For Mince Pies

What you will need (equipment):

A big mixing bowl
A big knife
A small knife
A teaspoon
A spoon that's the next size up from teaspoon
A fork
*A rolling pin
*A wire cooling rack
A sieve
*A bun tray
*Pastry cutters
Weighing scales
A pastry brush
A mug

*You have to go and buy items marked with a * from the shop the day before because you don't have one.

What you will need (food):

125g of butter (this is half a block)
250g of plain flour
A little bit of cold water
Mincemeat
An egg
Icing Sugar (optional)
Some oil

What to do:

1. Get everything you need.
2. Wash your hands!
3. Weigh out the flour using weighing scales and sieve it into the mixing bowl with your sieve. It's best to check before starting that the jumblees haven't gone to sea in your sieve, as it's the kind of thing that they like to do.
4. Weigh out your butter. If you're lazy, you can just cut your full block in half. It'll be about right unless your judgment is way bad.
5. Cut the butter into little pieces and put them in the bowl with the flour. You can use either the big knife or the little knife, but be careful either way!
6. Using your fingertips, lightly rub the butter into the flour until there are no big lumps left and the mixture is like breadcrumbs.
7. Now be really careful with the next bit or you'll really bugger things up. Add water to the mixture a spoon or two at a time. Mix it in with your fingers. Keep doing this until it all clumps together into a big ball. This should be not too dry and not too sticky: It should be just right. Well done - you've just made a big ball of pastry. Don't eat it yet though, we're not finished!
8. Wrap the pastry in clingfilm and put it in the fridge for a while.
9. Go and do something else for a couple of hours. Clean your bathroom, or maybe do the hoovering.
10. With chores finished, it's time to continue with mince pies. (First, wash your hands again!) Remove pastry from fridge, unwrap it and divide into two halfs. Flour a work surface and roll it out flat with a rolling pin until it's quite thin. Maybe a third of a centimetre.
11. Use the pastry cutters to cut out big and little circles. Make sure you have the same number of each. This recipe should make about 14 of each.
12. Lubricate your bun tray with oil. Sunflower will do.
13. Put a large circle in each hole, and press them down until they fit.
14. Fill each pie with mincemeat.
15. Put a small circle on top of each pie (hopefully they'll fit good!)
16. Put some fork holes in the top of each one.
17. Beat an egg in a mug.
18. Using the pastry brush, wipe beaten egg over the top of each pie, especially at the edges where the big pastry circle meats the little pastry circle.
19. Cook them in a preheated oven at an appropriate temperature and time for the oven you are using. In my fan oven, I did them at around 180 degrees Celsius for just over 25 minutes. That seemed to work.
20. Carefully remove the pies from the oven, and when things have cooled sufficiently, transfer them from the bun tray to the top of the wire cooling rack.
21. When they are cooled, you can sprinkle icing sugar over the top. I don't think I'll do this though.
22. All done!

And that's my fine recipe. Here's a picture of what the finished pies look like:



Don't let the dog eat them!

And here's my handy hint:

Handy Hint for baking mince pies
It seems mincemeat can be hard to find in York after Christmas. I had to try four shops before I found any, and they only had 1.4kg tubs. That was slightly more than I needed, but I didn't have much choice. Thank god for Budgens! So buy minemeat early!