Delia Smith's Christmas recipes: Traditional mince pies

By DELIA SMITH


Traditional family recipe: I will always cherish fond memories of my mother's cooling trays piled high with mince pies

I will always cherish fond memories of my mother's and my grandmother's cooling trays piled high with freshly baked mince pies on Christmas Eve, ready to be packed into tins and brought out whenever friends popped in for Christmas drinks. The following is the traditional family recipe.

Makes 24

INGREDIENTS
560g (1lb 4½oz) mincemeat
350g (12oz) plain flour
a pinch of salt
75g (2 3/4 oz) lard
75g (2 3/4 oz) butter

FOR THE TOP
icing sugar
a little milk

YOU WILL NEED: One (or two) trays of 6cm (2½in) patty tins, one fluted 7.5cm (3in) pastry cutter and one 6cm (2½in) cutter.


METHOD
Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Make up the pastry by sifting the flour and salt into a mixing bowl and rubbing the fats into it until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.

Then add just enough cold water to mix to a dough that leaves the bowl clean. leave the pastry to rest in a polythene bag in the fridge for 20-30 minutes, then roll half of it out as thinly as possible and cut it into two dozen 7.5cm (3in) rounds, gathering up the scraps and re-rolling.

Then do the same with the other half of the pastry, this time using the 6cm (2½in) cutter. now grease the patty tins lightly and line them with the larger rounds.

Fill these with three snips in the tops with a pair of scissors. Bake near the top of the oven for 25-30 minutes until light golden brown. Cool on a wire rack and sprinkle with icing sugar. When cool, store in an airtight container.

Extracted from Delia's Happy Christmas by Delia Smith, published by Ebury at £25. Copyright 2009. To order a copy for £20.99 (p&p free), call 0845 155 0720. For more recipes, visit www.deliaonline.com


source: dailymail