(Something vaguely like) Mincemeat for Mince Pies
09 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in Miscellaneous, Recipes Tags: afternoon tea, Christmas, DIY, recipe, recipes, thinking ahead, traditional, vegan, vegetarian
After having a bash at making my own pastry for mince pies last year (though that post dates from March, no idea who I thought would be making mince pies at that time of the year), this year the problem to be solved was mincemeat.
Alien to France, as is the suet which is the main ingredient, I thought I might as well have a stab at making my own after having been given some ready-to-roll pastry courtesy of a cooking class where they told us how bad it was to buy the prepackaged stuff and we all should make our own all the time. Still, waste not want not!
I couldn’t find any candied-peel, wouldn’t have used a whole bottle of brandy, wouldn’t have used a whole pack of almonds, couldn’t find currants, and suet is non-existent here, so the recipe search was… interesting. In the end I assembled a random assortment of likely-sounding ingredients and tossed them together. Its resultant appearance looks something like chutney, and it reminds me a bit of apple crumble pie filling, just with a bit of a kick. Feel free to add more orange or lemon juice, or indeed liqueur, before draining at the end.
If my scenario sounds up your street, or you just want a veggie-friendly mincemeat, read on…
Mince Pies
05 Mar 2011 1 Comment
in Miscellaneous, Recipes Tags: afternoon tea, baking, Christmas, pastry, recipe
Not just for Christmas!
Well, actually, they maybe are.
But it’s never too late to practice / blog about something you did months ago 
Shop-bought ones never taste quite as good as the home-made sort. Even if it’s a case of rolling out some shortcrust pastry and plopping in some store-bought mincemeat, they’ll be better… I didn’t have any pastry, so went one-up in the making stage and made my own. It’s really simple, actually.
