What sort of pastry am I looking for?

[cheesenpickles]

So I want to make some mince pies this year to try and recreate the ones my mum used to make when I was a kid. However unlike shop bought ones that are quite short in texture she used to make pastry that was more... shiny and held together better.

I've dug through every pile of recipes I have of hers but can't find what I'm looking for. I'm an ok (if novice) baker. Any suggestions? I know she used to do a milk wash on them at least (as that was my vvv important baking job when I was about 3)

Thanks in advance.

Oooh! And she may have used vegetarian suet if I remember correctly?

Shortcrust

Sounds like your mum was using a suet pastry? Plain flour, suet, salt and baking powder. We used to make jam roly-polys at school using this pastry. If you steam it the pastry softens and expands but baking it makes a harder pastry which holds together well.

There is such a thing as diet pasty and it gets the description you are talking about. Mist suet pastry is steamed as in spotted dick and jam toy poly or steak and kidney pudding but you can bake it too. May be that's it.

*suet. Definitely not diet, not low calorie at all!!

www.google.com/amp/s/www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/meat-and-poultry/steak-and-red-wine-pie-with-suet-crust/amp/

Maybe the pastry part from thus minus the mustard?

Possibly lard in the shortcrust pastry. This would make it crisper and shinier. Easier to use than suet. However, for the sake of taste, you might want to use half-lard half-butter.

My mum woukd use half stork and half lard in hers and it did make a more solid pastry. It wasn't that nice though in my opinion.

Mum's pastry would be more like this

If you really overwork pastry you can make it go like that 😬

That looks like lard shortcrust to me.

My Mother used to make it, & I found using butter was a light-bulb moment for me !!