Mince Pies in September ?

My boyfriend's favourite treat is mince pies. He loves Christmas purely because it brings mince pies to the shelves. So for his 21st birthday, I pulled out old recipe for mince pies pastry to surprise him.

I didn't make the fruit mince filling, I bought it from KOS in Hillcrest but I have heard that Safari makes a great fruit mince.

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Mince Pie Pastry

Ingredients

• 125g butter

• 125g castor sugar

• 1 egg

• drops of vanilla extract

• 500ml flour

• 1tsp baking powder

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°

2. Cream butter and sugar

3. Beat in the egg and vanilla

4. Add the sifted flour and baking powder and work to a manageable dough consistence. Add teaspoons of iced water to make the dough combine better.

5. Roll out on a counter top with flour laid out. Roll out until 1/5 cm thick, quite thin.

6. Grease a muffin tray and cut out circles from the dough. Lay out in the tray.

7. Fill with fruit mince.

8. Cut circle from the dough to over the mince pies. Dip finger into water and trace over the edge of the bottom pastry then stick the 'lid' of the pastry on top.

9. Bake at 200° for 10min until slightly golden.

10. Leave to cool

and remember to love yourself first,

love Amber