Almondy mince pies

I love lots of nuts in my Christmas cake, Christmas pudding and also my mince pies and if this was a cookie you would probably call it a triple almond one! Of course you don’t have to make them in a muffin tin, if you want shallower mince pies use a normal patty tin but reduce the cooking time slightly.

Ingredients

• 250g plain flour
• 100g ground almonds
• 100g golden caster sugar
• 200g cold butter cubed
• 600g mincemeat, any will do but add extra fruit and brandy to your taste including chunky chopped whole almonds. I also added lots of glace cherries.
• 1 egg plus another beaten for glazing
• 1/2 tsp almond extract

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6/ fan oven 180C
2. In a bowl rub the butter and flour together by hand or in a food processor
3. Stir in the sugar and ground almonds
4. Add the egg and mix until the mixture forms a dough.
5. Divide the dough into two balls and knead for a minute, flatten into a disc shape and  then wrap each disc in cling film and chill in the fridge for 15 mins
6. Prepare the filling by chopping any extra fruit and nuts and adding to the mincemeat. Add any alcohol wanted and also the almond extract and mix well.
7. Lightly grease a 12 hole muffin tin.
8. Roll out one at a time each disc of pastry onto a lightly floured surface. Obviously the flatter you can get this the better but not so flat is impossible to transfer to the tin without breaking
9. Using a large cutter cut out circles and push each into the muffin tin hole. Save the trimmings for the lids.
10. Spoon a generous serving of mincemeat into each pastry covered hole. As much as you can fit in is ideal but remember too much and it could spill out during cooking.
11. Roll out the remaining pastry and cut out smaller circles for lids.
12. Brush the edges of the cases with beaten egg before pressing the lids on.
13. Brush all the lids with beaten egg.
14. Bake for approximately 20 minutes until golden.
15. Leave in the tin to cool completely and then gently remove from the tin.
16. Dust with icing sugar.
17. These can be frozen in the tin before cooking and when needed cook from frozen for 25-30 minutes.

Makes at least 14 mince pies

Tagged as: Almond mince pies, Christmas food