Mince pies

[Kissmyaxe]

Please help - sweet or plain pastry?? Nigel Slater says plain, Paul Hollywood tells me sweet 🤷🏻‍♀️ Who do I trust? What’s your preference? 🥧

Sweet.

Nigella's

Sweet - trust The Hollywood .

Puff

Sweet and i add extra orange rind for zing and pop 3 fresh cranberries on the top, then a pastry star - best mince pies ever 😁

Plain, and it must be thin, with lots of filling. Mincemeat is sweet enough anyway.

Sweet. Use a recipe which has ground almonds. They make the pastry really short and melt in your mouth.

I do slightly sweet - 1tbsp of icing sugar for 7oz flour.

Sweet. There's only one recipe worth making and that's the bbc good food one called unbelievably easy mince pies. I bake them every year and they get so many compliments.

Yes I'll second the unbelievably easy mince pie recipe - you can not go wrong, the pastry is so forgiving.

They do look a bit rustic though, so not the first to be chosen at a mince pie competition (ie social gathering where everyone makes them) they are always the best tasting.

Please someone give me a foolproof recipe for the pastry as I cannot spend another weekend in the kitchen swearing at pastry that is failing

Oh gosh no sweet pastry is all wrong.

Normal shortcrust pastry, thinish and lovely mincemeat....

Elle - half fat to flour. Use hard fat like "best for baking". Rub fat into flour. Keep cold.

Add just enough water to make it bind.

Try not to handle too much, put into fridge for 30mins then use!

I use this recipe from BBC Good Food.

I've also used the recipe in the attached photo. I made the mincemeat in the recipe for these ones and Delia's mincemeat in the other recipe. Can't beat homemade mincemeat!

@JustKeepSwimmingJustKeepSwimmi that was what I used to do (but I used half butter and half, ahem, lard ) DH is veggie so no lard allowed... does it work as well with just butter?

So many great ideas thanks! Definitely going to try the BBC ones.

@bilbodog your recipe sounds like a game changer!

@nowordforfluffy I’ve neber attempted to make mine own mincemeat 🤔 Currently living for the M&S Prosecco mincemeat.

I always used Delia's recipe and it was a plain pastry

The one with the magazine mince pies was bloody easy to do, @kissmyaxe. Have a go! 😁

plain, very thin and tiny mincemeat pasty from the last of the trimmings

Plain but add some cinnamon. Or puff pastry but then it's more of a cross between a Eccles cake and a mince pie

You want Ainsely's sweet, almond pasty with a scraping of lemon zest. They're to die for.

Lemon instead of it as well as the orange, Titsalina? I'm making another batch of his next weekend.

Jusrol shortcrust pastry and add some clementine zest. Then I use marzipan instead of a pasty top. Lazy and so good.

Orange pastry.

I can’t bake or should that read I won’t bake !! So Aldi’s extra special mince pies for me they are fantastic!!