Christmas: Filo mince pies with marzipan

I haven't been making anything much new in the last couple of weeks. I cut my finger pretty bad preparing chestnuts (which were delicious but perhaps not worth it?), so chopping etc was a bit of a pain for a while, and I was feeling a bit silly and not very inspired. Since I got back in the kitchen I seem to have been sticking to comforting old favourites (some several times / variations) - tapioca 'cheese' rolls, carrot and mung bean salad, lentil and onion salad, ful medammes, freekeh, chickpea curry...

But tomorrow is Christmas Day, so I have stirred myself and am just about feeling ready to cook new things again. I feel much better for it - I've realised cooking comprises much of my relaxation, creative stimulation and fun these days - without it I feel a bit flat.

It doesn't feel like Christmas until I eat my first mince pie, but mince pies don't seem to have made the transition across the ocean. So the only way I get to eat them is by making them myself. Luckily I had some mincemeat left that I made earlier. I was thinking of making my favourite mince pie pastry, but then I realised I also had filo on my mental list of things I wanted to make / to use up / that could be fancy for Christmas. So I used filo as the pastry (added bonus of keeping it simple by not needing to make pastry). Similarly, I had a huge hunk of marzipan* that we'd bought from Polcari's in Little Italy with Christmas in mind. I guess I was thinking of Christmas cake but it seemed daft to make more cake with so much birthday cake still hanging around; and Christmas cake AND mince pies seemed like overkill besides. So I thought I'd combine the two and put some marzipan inside the mince pies.

(makes 12 mince pies)
(move the filo from freezer to fridge to defrost 3-24 hours in advance)

half a large package of thickish (#7 - #10) filo pastry (you need 48 ~4 in squares) (used the rest of the filo for this)
1 400g jar of mincemeat
~100g marzipan*, approx 2 mm dice

Heat the oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 12 cup muffin tin. Taking one square at a time, line each muffin cup with three squares of filo (you should wind up with 12 squares left; be careful not to let them dry out - keep under a clean, damp cloth). Add in the mincemeat (~2 tbsp per cup), and sprinkle some diced marzipan over the top of the mincemeat. Scrunch one of the remaining filo sheets and place on top of the mincemeat in each cup. Brush with a little almond milk if you like. Bake for approx 10 min, until lightly browned. Remove from the oven and lift out of the cups to cool on a baking rack.


Once I'd done the maths of how many pieces of filo I needed, how big, how much mincemeat, etc, these were incredibly simple (thanks to having pre-made the mincemeat). Seriously, a three ingredient recipe - you can't get much easier than that. The crispy filo is very different from the usual crumbly shortcrust but I actually really like it: it looks really pretty and fancy, and crucially is not sweet - I think it's really important to have savoury pastry in mince pies as a counterpoint to the crazy intense sweet-spiciness of the mincemeat.

*actually, it is labelled almond paste and I think marzipan and almond paste might technically be slightly different things. If they are I prefer almond paste for most things - think it is less sweet and has a more pronounced almond flavour. Found full truth here.

Sesame star mince pies (gluten-free)

I made these two years ago, but did not make them completely gluten free (used plain flour instead of the gram/rice mix). I really liked the pastry though - much more interesting than normal pastry. This time I went the whole hog and they are fully GF. The source of the recipe has now truly disappeared into the ether, but I found it somewhere on the internet back then.

(these quantities make 12, when bases cut using Coke glass and baked in regular-sized bun tin)

50g ground almonds
60g cooked chickpeas, mashed to a stiff paste
100g gluten-free plain flour (or 50g gram flour, 50g rice flour)
2 tbsp sesame seeds
40g margarine (or cold-pressed plain sesame or safflower oil)
water, to bind
1 400g jar of mincemeat

Combine seeds, ground almonds, flour and ground chickpeas. Rub in fat and mix with a fork. Add a little water to combine. Rest in the fridge 30min.

Heat oven to 400F / 200C. Roll out the pastry to about 2 mm thick and cut into rounds for pie bases (deep fill used tall plastic measure beaker / normal size used Coke glass). Put bases into bun / muffin tin. Fill with mincemeat or a mixture of mincemeat and cooked apple. Cut out stars (I freehanded) and put them on the tops. Bake for 20-35 min, til lightly browned and crisp. Leave to cool before trying to remove from trays.


The mincemeat I made 2 years ago was still in good nick, so that's what I used for these. I did see mincemeat in Stop n Shop the other day though, for future reference. The pastry was perhaps relatively brittle due to the use of GF flours, but it rolled out OK. I'm wondering if the gram flour was a mistake: it does have quite a pungent taste. Truth will be in the eating - they are cooling right now.

They are good! The pastry is nice and crunchy and robust, and delicious in combination with the mincemeat. The gram taste has baked out. The pastry isn't like regular mince pie pastry, but I think it's better.

Only thing is, the combo of the GF pastry (which cracks quite easily) and the runnier than normal mincemeat (because I used booze instead of fat to preserve it) means the liquid has seeped through the bottoms of a few of the pies and they were kind of welded onto the pans... still came off, but a couple lost a small part of the base. I guess I could have taken more care cutting them out and getting them into the tins...


Note: these freeze (baked) very well: can basically eat them straight from the freezer.

Apple and mincemeat strudel

Using up the rest of the filo I used for this.  And some of the excess mincemeat jarred before Christmas - turns out it is still fine.

4 medium dessert apples
1 small (~250g) pot mincemeat
4 tbsp melted butter / marg
2 tbsp warm honey
~1 tsp lemon juice
1 cup breadcrumbs
4 sheets #7 filo

Preheat oven to 350F.

Peel and finely slice the apples.  Mix with the mincemeat.

Melt ~ 2 tbsp 'butter' in a small frying pan, add breadcrumbs and stir til they are browned and fragrant without being burnt at all.

Lightly oil a large cookie sheet.  Place the first filo sheet on it, smear with melted butter, then layer the other filo sheets in the same way (keep enough melted butter to put some on top of the roll at the end).

Spread the top sheet with warm honey, then sprinkle breadcrumbs on top of that.

Put the apple mix along the long side of the filo sheets.  Then wrap it up.  Cut slits in the top filo and put some butter on top.

Put in the oven at 350F for 30-40min, til the filo is golden brown.

Allow to cool for ~15 min before slicing and eating.

This is actually surprisingly good!  The filo is a good texture and not burnt at the bottom, the apples are well cooked, the filling is tasty and not too sweet.  The browned breadcrumbs were definitely worth adding - they elevate it to being a proper strudel and not just an apple pie.  The apple vs mincemeat ratio is perhaps a little out - might have used more apple and less mincemeat.

Christmas Baking

Christmas Cake

(based on Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's one from the Guardian website)

200g sultanas (I used golden raisins - sultanas are hard to find in the US)
200g currants (used raisins - currants also hard to find here)

150g dried apricots, chopped (used mixture of figs, peaches, raisins)
150g prunes, diced (used mixture of dates and cranberries)
150g raisins (used cranberries)
60g candied peel (see below for recipe)
60g dried cherries or cranberries (used glace cherries)
Grated zest and juice of 1 orange (used 2 clementines)
Grated zest of 1 lemon
200ml Somerset apple brandy (used 150ml Pimms)
110g hazelnuts, roasted and roughly chopped
200g unsalted butter (used vegan margarine)
100g light muscovado sugar (used golden sugar)
80g dark muscovado sugar (used dark brown sugar)
4 eggs, lightly beaten (used flax eggs)
250g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 heaped tsp mixed spice (ginger / cinnamon / allspice)
1/4 of a nutmeg, grated
1/4 tsp salt
90g stem ginger, finely chopped

Recipe said to soak first nine ingredients in a bowl, add the brandy, stir, cover and leave for 48 hours - I didn't do this and added the booze when I mixed up the ingredients instead.

Preheat the oven to 140C/275F/gas mark 1. Grease a round 22-24cm x 9cm, loose-bottomed cake tin, and line with parchment to come 4cm above the sides. Pulse half the hazelnuts until very fine. Beat the butter and sugars till fluffy, then beat in the 'eggs' one by one (if it begins to curdle, add a little flour). Sieve the flour, baking powder, spices and salt, then stir gently into the batter. Fold in the fruit, nuts, pimms and ginger, spoon into the tin, smooth and bake for two to two and a quarter hours (took more like 3 1/4 - think I would increase cooking temperature if I made it again, just to like 300F or so), until a skewer (or knitting needle) comes out clean. (If it browns before it's done, cover with parchment.) Leave to cool in the tin, then remove and wrap in a double layer of foil. Store in a cool, dry place, feeding it with a slug of brandy every two weeks.

For decorating:
300g whole dried fruits, such as figs, apricots, apple slices, cherries
120g nuts, such as hazelnuts, walnuts, Brazil nuts, almonds
150g warm apricot jam, strained

A day or so before the big day, brush with warm apricot glaze, lay the fruit and nuts on top, and glaze again. Store in an airtight container.

Took a long time to cook. Perhaps 160C / 320F would have been better? I made it 2 weeks before Christmas so that is how long it'll have to mature I guess - will have to see how it tastes then.

Edit: Fed once with more Pimms a week after making, then it was Christmas a week later so I decorated it on Christmas Eve.  Warmed a little strawberry jam (didn't have apricot) and brushed it on top, then rolled out about half a pound (maybe more) of marzipan from Polcari's in Little Italy to about 0.5cm thick and pressed it around the cake.  Brushed a little more jam on top (used about 5 tbsp jam total I guess) and then arranged sliced dried figs, walnut halves, halved glace cherries and hazelnut on top and glazed with a little more jam.  Would have tied ribbon around the outside if I had some (perfect stuff left over from happy hour is sitting at work, oh well.  It was fun to mix in the good bits of cake decoration - I don't like royal icing much, but I have a guilty love for glace cherries.  It tastes really good!  A bit sticky, perhaps because of the smoke alarm going off and me therefore curtailing the cooking time a little, but it's yummy.  The candied ginger addition really made it, I think - definitely try and use ginger in future xmas cakes.


Candied Peel

Wash and chop peel (say 1 cup - any mixture of lemon, orange, clementine, grapefruit etc). Put in pan with water. Bring to the boil for 10-15min then drain. Repeat 3 times. Then make sugar water syrup (1 cup of each) and boil with peel until evaporated. Spread on a baking sheet and put in switched-off oven overnight to dry out.


Mincemeat 
(do about several weeks in advance of use)

-adapted from a recipe I found somewhere in the internets and forgot where (sorry).

3/4 pint cider
1 lb / 450g soft dark brown sugar
1 lb cooking apple (cored and chopped finely / not peeled - any kind of apple will do if can't find cooking apples - they are hard to find in the US)
1 tsp mixed spice (cinnamon / nutmeg / allspice / ginger / cloves)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
pinch ground cloves
12 oz currants (used golden raisins)
12 oz raisins
8 oz sultanas (used cranberries)
4oz glace cherries (used dried cherries)
4oz candied peel
4 oz chopped almonds (used flaked)
1 orange, juice and zest (used 2 clementines)
1 lemon, juice and zest
1/4 pint brandy or rum (used double amount of Pimms)

1) put cider and sugar in a pan, heat til dissolved
2) add rest except alcohol and boil (stir constantly)
3) lower heat and partially cover. simmer ~45min to thicken
4) cool completely. add alcohol. put in sterile jars (pack down carefully to avoid air bubbles).
5) Add discs of greaseproof or waxed paper to tops of jars, then lid and store.

deffo fine after 2 weeks. not sure how long it'll last - no suet as preservative, is it enough booze? a less thick texture than using fat, but still tastes really good.


Mince Pies

Traditional Pastry
4oz (~100g) plain flour
2oz (~50g) vegan margarine

(for sweet pastry add 1oz sugar)

Rub fat into flour. Add a little water to combine. Rest in the fridge for 30min.


Seed / nut / pulse pastry (vegan / gluten free)
50g ground almonds
60g cooked chickpeas, mashed to a stiff paste (organic tinned are fine)
100g Doves Farm gluten-free plain flour (or 50g gram flour, 50g rice flour)
2 tbsp sesame seeds
40g sunflower margarine (or cold-pressed plain sesame or safflower oil)
sparkling water, to bind

Combine seeds, ground almonds, flour (used normal flour) and ground chickpeas. Rub in fat and mix with a fork. Add a little water to combine. Rest in the fridge 30min.

For any pastry:
Roll out and cut into rounds for pie bases (deep fill used tall plastic measure beaker / normal size used Coke glass). Put bases into bun tin (or muffin tin - that's all I had and it was OK). Fill with mincemeat or a mixture of mincemeat and cooked apple (or pear, or nashi pear - I cooked with a little sugar and a little cinnamon). Cut out stars and put them on the tops. Bake at 400F/200C for ~20min, til golden brown and crisp. Leave to cool before trying to remove from trays.

Both types of pastry came out better than I expected. We liked the seedy one - more interesting. Seedy stuff made 11 deep fill mince pies; classic stuff in total made 14 normal size ones - I guess the quantities are intended to do about 12?


Also managed to set off the fire alarm (good to test it I guess?) through overspill from xmas cake onto bottom of oven where it burned. We wafted it and it was OK.