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20th December 2016
12:10am GMT
I love mince pies. I think everyone loves mince pies. They are delicious hot or cold and very easy to stuff your face with. I don't ever hear of anyone making them at home any more though, which is a damn shame. Hopefully with this little cheats recipe we can change that. I promise you, if you make this once, you will never want to go back to the store bought ones.
Ingredients
Remove the puff pastry from the pack and lay it out on your counter top.
Slice down one side to remove about a 5cm strip of pastry, this is for the topping.
Dust the pastry with one teaspoon of cinnamon.
From the bottom of the long side, start to roll up the pastry like a Swiss roll.
Cut this long sausage of pastry into six equal pieces.
Place the pieces up on their ends and press them down into little disks.
Take a muffin or cupcake pan and press each of the disks into the bottom of one of the holes. Using your fingers, pull the pastry up the sides of holes in order to make little pastry cups.
Bake these in an oven preheated to 180 degrees for about fifteen minutes. When they come out they will be really puffed up.
Use a spoon to press the pastry back and down in order to retain that cup shape. Sometimes if they are still a little soft another five minutes of cooking is advisable.
Now it’s time to make the filling. Add the Hennessy, raisins, cranberries and two tablespoons of caster sugar into a small pot.
Cook over a medium heat until the raisins and cranberries have started to absorb all of the sugar and Hennessy. This usually only takes five to ten minutes. Remove from the heat and add in the jar of mincemeat. Mix everything together really well.
Give each of your little tart cases a tablespoon of your warm mincemeat mix.
You can get a bit creative with the pastry lids like I did (to varying degrees of success) here or you can just cut squares and place them on top. Brush them with melted butter, milk or a whisked up egg, whichever you have on hand. Sprinkle over some caster sugar as well.
Place them back into the oven for another ten to fifteen minutes or however long it takes for the pasty to cook through.
When they come out, whisk up a bit of cream, dust with icing sugar and away you go.
