Fruit Mince Pies

I am really sorry I haven't been posting during christmas time, but I had to learn that everything is a lot harder to coordinate when you're working full-time. I had one free weekend and knew that I needed to get my baking as well as making my christmas wreaths. 

Today's recipe was my recipe for the office's christmas party. Everybody brought something and I volunteered on bringing something sweet. The recipe for these pies is from the Donna Hay app, the December/January 2013 issue. And the best thing is that you can prepare the pastry and filling ahead, keep them in your fridge until the next day, and assemble everything when you're ready. 

Here's the recipe:

For the filling:
1 Granny Smith (green) apple, peeled and grated
2/3 cup (110g) currants
3/4 cup (120g) sultanas
1/2 cup (70g) slivered almonds
2/3 cup (85g) mixed peel
1/3 cup (80ml) maple syrup
1/2 cup (90g) brown sugar
60g unsalted butter, chopped
1/3 cup (80ml) butterscotch schnapps or sherry
1 egg, lightly beaten
white sugar, for sprinkling
icing sugar, for dusting

For the spiced brown sugar pastry:
2 2/3 cups (400g) all-purpose flour
300g cold unsalted butter, chopped
1/2 cup (90g) brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1) Prepare the pastry first. Cut the butter (straight from the fridge) into small cubes. Place the flour, butter, sugar, ginger and cinnamon in a food processor or electric mixer and process in shorts bursts until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. 

2) Add the eggs and vanilla extract and process until the pastry comes together. Turn onto a generously floured bench and bring the dough together and divide in half. 

3) At this point, you can either roll the dough now or chill it first and roll it later. 

4) Grate the apples. Place them with the currants, sultanas, almonds, mixed peel, maple syrup, brown sugar, butter and alcohol in a medium saucepan over medium heat and cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the fruit is softened and the liquid is absorbed. Set aside to cool. 

When assembling the pies:

5) Preheat the oven to 160°C (320°F). Roll the dough between generously flour-dusted sheets of non-stick baking paper. Roll each piece of dough to 5mm thick. If you like a your crust a little thinner, especially when lining mini muffin tins, that'll work as well. 

6) Grease your tins (regular muffin tins, mini muffin tins or small pies tins each work well). For half of the dough, using a 7cm-round cookie cutter, cut 24 round from the dough to line 24x40ml-capacity patty tins. With the other half, using a fluted cookie cutter, cut out 24 round and, using a 1cm piping nozzle, make a hole through the middle of each fluted round. 

7) Line your tins of choice with the dough. Maybe you have to adjust the size of the rounds, depending on the size of your tins. For the mini muffin tins, I cut 6cm rounds, for example. 

8) Spoon the filling into the cases. Brush the edges with egg, top the fruit filling with the fluted rounds and press the edges to seal. Brush the tops with the remaining egg and sprinkle with a little white sugar. 

9) Bake for 25-30 minutes or until lightly golden. Allow to cool in the tins for 5 minutes before turning out to cool completely. Dust with the icing sugar to serve. 

Makes: 24 according to Donna. I ended up with 24 6-cm-rounds for the mini muffin tins and 12 8-cm-rounds for a regular muffin tin. The filling was enough for all.

Active preparation time: about 40 minutes
Total preparation time: about 2 hours

Here's how mine look:

I used dried cranberries, because I had no chance in getting currants in Switzerland in the winter. The cranberries added a beautiful hint of sourness and a slightly tangy note, that nicely balanced the sweetness of the filling and spices. I also couldn't find butterscotch schnapps, but sherry worked great. 

As I mentioned before, I used mini muffin tins and regular muffin tins as I don't yet have patty tins. Both worked well. You might want to adjust the size of the rounds you cut from the dough. 

Have fun trying and merry Christmas everyone!!