Creating the Best Mince Pies

In my eyes, mince pies are a necessity at Christmas. I could quite happily work my way through a whole box. I’ve made them throughout the years but never quite nailed the recipe. So for the last few weeks, I’ve been testing and trialling a few variations to create my own.

I tried a traditional recipe, chocolate pastry, using caster sugar versus icing sugar, adding marzipan or almond flour, plus varying the quantities of mincemeat to pastry to get the perfect ratio. Here I take you through what worked (and didn’t) with the recipes I tried and you’ll see how I’ve incorporated elements from them all to create, in my opinion, the best mince pies!

Delia Smith’s Mince Pies

Delia Smith’s Christmas Cookbook is a staple in our house. Every year, my dad would turn to it as his bible for creating the most delicious Christmas spread. As the responsibility has now been bestowed upon me, I feel obliged to follow in his footsteps with Delia guiding me.

With time on my hands in the lead up to Christmas, I decided to have a go at baking my first Christmas cake. I got so invested I made 2; a traditional Christmas Cake and a Scottish Whiskey Dundee Cake. For the last 6 weeks, I’ve been heavily “feeding” them with brandy and whisky so they should be packed with flavour by now!

Trusting in Delia, I went to her mince pie recipe first thinking it would solve all my problems. However, it resulted in overfilled and overcooked pies – not my finest hour – but they tasted ok-ish. I found the recipe was quite short and was missing some details such as what to look for when the pastry is ready and the pies are fully cooked. I also found the pastry was quite tough and in trying to shape it into the correct sizes for the muffin tin, it got overworked. So, I went in search of a new recipe.

Dr Oetker Chocolate Orange Mince Pies

I thought I’d go rogue and try something out of the ordinary. I found Dr Oetker’s Chocolate Orange Mince Pies to be tasty with the inclusion of cocoa powder into the pastry. But as any true chocoholic would, I didn’t think they were chocolatey enough. In fact, people assumed they were just overcooked! 

I liked the addition of the orange zest and juice, but with the strong mincemeat flavour and chocolate pastry, the orange was lost. As you can see from the image below, I didn’t cut the pastry circles big enough so they were quite small cups and I couldn’t add too much mincemeat without overfilling it again.

BBC GoodFood Mince Pies

A bit of googling and BBC GoodFood’s Mince Pie recipe is a top search. This recipe includes caster sugar instead of icing sugar and without the addition of any liquid, creates a deliciously crumbly pastry. 

However, because it’s so crumbly, the pastry cannot be rolled out and cut into circles, but rather is pressed directly into the muffin tin. Therefore, my attempt resulted in thick pastry to minimal mincemeat. This was my favourite pastry because of the crumbly texture but also the sweetness from the sugar, I just needed to work on my ratios.

Mary Berry’s Mince Pies

Next, I thought I’d go to the Queen of Baking and Nation’s grandmother for her mince pie recipe. Mary Berry incorporates dried apricots into her mincemeat. This really helps to bulk out the filling without adding to the overpowering flavour. She also tops her mince pies with grated marzipan rather than more pastry. This is a great alternative and adds an almond undertone to the whole pie – delicious! 

I did struggle with the pastry as I found it quite wet to work with. In adding more flour to help, it resulted in quite a short dough which I still couldn’t roll out. I found it much easier to press it into the muffin tin as previously done with the BBC GoodFood recipe.

Looking for more Christmas inspired recipes? Check out my Christmas Pudding Double Chocolate Cookies or a guide on how to ice your Christmas cake.

The Best Mince Pies

It’s been a real hardship for my family and me to test all these recipes but certainly worth it when you try what I’ve created. As you’ll see in the recipe below, I’ve incorporated elements from all of the recipes. They may not be completely traditional, but these mince pies are certainly the best if I do say so myself! 

Makes 15 mince pies

Prep time: 30 minutes

Cook time: 20 – 25 minutes

Total time: 50 – 55 minutes

Ingredients 

200g cold butter

350g plain flour 

100g caster sugar 

Zest of 1 orange

420g mincemeat

12 – 15 dried apricots

30g flaked almonds

100g marzipan

Method 

First, preheat the oven to 180 degrees and set your muffin tin aside ready for when you need it. 

Place the cold, diced butter and plain flour into a large mixing bowl. Begin rubbing them together between your fingertips and thumbs. Keep going until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs – the cold butter will help this. 

Next, stir in the caster sugar and orange zest. Then, without adding any liquid, begin pressing the mix together to form a crumbly dough and trust that it will all come together. If it’s easier you can tip the pastry out onto a clean work surface and press it into a ball. 

Divide the mixture into 16, grab 1/16th and place it into one muffin hole. Take your time to press the pastry firmly into the base and sides of the individual muffin tin. Make sure the pastry is covering the tin evenly. Repeat for the remaining pastry balls. Don’t worry if it crumbles or breaks, just use any offcuts to repair the patches. Set aside. 

In a small bowl or cup, portion out a tablespoon of mincemeat with 1 diced apricot. Mix together to create the filling for 1 mince pie. Place the filling mix into the uncooked pastry and repeat for all the pies. Your mince pies should now be almost full with roughly ½ centimetre of the pastry around the top still showing. 

Next, grate the marzipan and sprinkle on top of each mince pie, along with the almond flakes and any offcuts of pastry crumbs that didn’t make it. Don’t worry if some of the mincemeat is still showing. Just make sure they have any even covering of marzipan, almonds and pastry. 

Place them into the oven for 20 – 25 minutes. The pastry should be lightly golden and firm around the edges with specks of mincemeat bubbling underneath. Leave the mince pies in the tray for 20 minutes. Then carefully remove and place onto a wire rack to cool fully. 

Finally, enjoy a crumbly buttery pastry with sweetly spiced fruits and topped with nuttiness!

To view how I made these mince pies follow me on Instagram at @theardentbakery. 

For more recipes, check out my baking section.

Els x