Mince pies with orange pastry

Step 1

For the mincemeat, simply mix all ingredients together in a bowl, ladle into sterilised jar and keep somewhere cool.

Step 2

For the pastry, mix all the ingredients together by hand (or in a processor). It’s quite a wet sticky mix, but don’t worry. Mould it into a ball and put it in the fridge for 30 mins. Flour your work surface and roll out the pastry. Using a cutter, make rounds slightly bigger than you need to fill the dimples in your pie tin. Line the pie tin slots.

Step 3

Put dessert spoon of mincemeat in each. I love it with a teaspoon of cream cheese or Creme fraiche, slightly sweetened, on top. You can freeze the pies in the tin at this stage or bake.

Step 4

Cut some stars out from the pastry too. Wet your fingers with water and slightly dampen the edge of each base before putting the stars on top. Lightly brush with a little egg wash. They can be cooked from frozen but add 5 min to cooking time.

Step 5

Preheat oven to 180°C. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes. You can cool and freeze at this cooked stage too, but take care not to dry them out. Only reheat once. Allow them to cool in the tin for a few minutes before moving to a cake rack to cool more. Serve warm, dusting with icing sugar, or store in airtight tin for up to month.