Paul Hollywood's mince pies

Paul Hollywood's mince pies
Prepare
less than 30 mins
Cook
10 to 30 mins
Serve
Makes 12–14 deep mince pies

These deep-fill mince pies are so simple and delicious. The secret is to jazz up shop-bought mincemeat with a little fresh fruit and orange zest, which makes the filling lighter and fresher.

For this recipe you will need a deep muffin tin with 12 holes, a 9–10cm/3½–4in round pastry cutter and a smaller pastry cutter for the lids.

By Paul Hollywood

From The Great British Bake Off

Shopping list

Ingredients

For the pastry

For the filling

  • 2 x 400g jars mincemeat
  • 2 tangerines or seedless easy peelers, zest grated and flesh chopped
  • 1 apple, finely chopped
Recipe tips
How-to videos

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6.

  2. For the pastry, rub the flour, butter, sugar and egg together with a splash of cold water until it just comes together as a dough. You can do this in a food processor or by hand, but take care not to overwork the dough as this will make the pastry tough.

  3. Shape the pastry into a thick disc – you don't need to be precise with this, it should just be a shape that's easy to roll out later. Wrap the pastry in cling film and chill it in the fridge while you make the filling (20–30 minutes is ideal).

  4. To make the filling, put the mincemeat in a bowl. Add the zest of the tangerines and the chopped tangerines and apple. Mix well.

  5. Roll out the pastry to a 3mm/⅛in thickness. Using a round pastry cutter, cut out 12 discs of pastry (about 9cm/3½in diameter). Press the pastry into the holes of the muffin tin. Fill each one with a good helping of the mincemeat mixture, so that it reaches three-quarters of the way up the side of the pastry (don't overfill as the pies will burst during cooking).

  6. With a plain or fluted pastry cutter, cut out 12 pastry circles for the lids (they should be slightly bigger than the top of the muffin cups). Brush a little water around the top edges of the pastry cases in the tin. Place a lid on top of each pie and gently push down to seal the pastry at the edges. Sprinkle with a little caster sugar.

  7. Bake for 20 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

  8. Serve warm. Paul likes to dust them with icing sugar and serve with fresh cream, but they are delicious as they are.

Recipe tips

You can halve this recipe to make 6–7 deep mince pies.

If cooking for vegetarians, make sure the mincemeat is vegetarian. Most are, but some traditional recipes contain beef suet. Same with nuts, as some mincemeat contains nuts (although it's easy to find ones that don't).

If you enjoy very citrussy mince pies, you can add the zest of a tangerine to the pastry too. Just mix it in with the flour.