Fruit mince pies!

Christmas is fast approaching and it is a good excuse for me to make some more fruit mince pies. Yum!

I was unadventurous this year and used the Donna Hay recipe that I used last year. I was hoping that this would make it easier. I still managed to come up with some notes the second time around. See here for the notes from last year.

• I abandoned the thin plastic cookie cutters that I have in favour of my tupperware scone cutter. Okay, it is still plastic but much more durable. I would really like to buy a 7cm metal cutter though for future use with my patty pan tray


• The best way to get the pies out of the tray - if they become stuck - is using a plastic knife. For starters it will not scratch the non-stick coating and secondly the plastic knife that I used bent and was better for getting out the curved bottom pies


• I used my new Kitchenaid food processor to make the pastry. Yay! It was so quick to make the pastry and the motor did not struggle at all


• A second tray would be very handy, as the recipe makes two batches. The tray was hot straight out of the oven and I needed to wash the syrup off the tray before I could use it again! I will keep my eye out for one that is non-stick - E and I saw that Willow has them and so I will try to find a couple after the craziness of Christmas


• I noticed in the current Donna Hay Magazine that she had a recipe for spiced fruit mince pies, with a spiced shortcrust pastry recipe. I had already made my pastry though so too late to experiment this time around


• I could see the benefit of having guides for rolling out your pastry to make sure that the pastry height is even. I always manage to have it thicker in the middle and the edges are thin. The pastry that was rolled first showed the least distortion during cooking so the aim is to cut them all from the same roll

Christmas

That is Christmas over for another year! This year was a bit different. In our family normally we will all get together in the morning to open presents, then have the family lunch. In this case "we" consists of Mum, Dad, me, E and now C. Yesterday both E and C were working, and I got to Mum & Dad's late, so we did no present opening in the morning and instead it waited until the evening when E had finished work and had come to over. C is still working, I will not see him for another week! That gives me time to sort out his present though...

The family lunch is with my Mum's family, and held either at my parent's house are at my Mum's brother's house. They rotate every year. The lineup changes every year depending on who is in Perth and not working, and it is lovely to catch up with cousins and aunts and find out what has been going on! Yesterday there were nineteen of us for lunch, probably the largest group that we have had for a few years.

When E came over she started pulling parcels out of her Christmas sack (that is, a green shopping bag!). There were a large number with my name on it. This is very exciting however I only had one with her name on it and was starting to get a bit concerned. Her presents for me were lots of smaller, useful items, and it was lovely to open them one at a time.



Two food related items that she gave me are the heart shaped cutters, and the Donna Hay Cupcake Papers. The cutters came with a note from E saying that they could be used for C's & my engagement party, and I believe that she offered to make heart shaped shortbread for the party. That would be awesome! The cupcake papers are also really sweet, it seems a shame to actually put cupcakes into them.

I also learnt yesterday that David Jones has a better collection of baking items than I believed. I have noticed recently that they stock a range of Wilton baking items in the general kitchen area, and E said that there are more and varied items further within the food court section. I shall have to investigate, but perhaps after the craziness of the post-Christmas sales has died down!

E has also given me the rest of her egg yolks, hopefully they are still okay and I will make some custard with them later to go with the Christmas cakes and puddings that we have been given!!

Run, run as fast as you can!

Christmas time, and it is gingerbread man time! This is becoming a Christmas tradition, I think this will be the third year in a row that I have made gingerbread for Christmas Day!


The first year my sister E and I made them, and we had lots of fun decorating them! The first rack shown left are some of the efforts of 2007. Last year Mum asked me to make them again, and one of her requests was to make smaller sizes. I spent a few hours on Christmas morning decorating them, and decided that larger sizes were much, much better (and quicker to decorate!).

This year, Mum has put in a special request for extras for their annual friends barbecue, and C has also asked for some to take down south to Peaceful Bay when he goes camping, as we took the leftovers last year and they were a hit!

The recipe that I use is very simple, it is from the Australian Women's Weekly! I am fairly sure that it is the same recipe as was in the "AWW Beautiful Biscuits" cook book, that K3 and I used back in high school to make gingerbread! At least, I hope it is, because that is the recipe that I was searching for.

Anyway, here is the recipe, with my notes.

125g butter
½ cup (100g) firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg yolk
2 ½ cups (375g) plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
3 teaspoons ground ginger
½ cup (125 ml) golden syrup

Beat butter until it lightens in colour, then add the sugar and cream. Add the egg yolk and beat until combined.


Sift dry ingredients together. Mix into the butter mixture with the golden syrup and bring together. I tried to mix mine in with the mixmaster today until it started jumping out of the bowl. At that point I tipped it onto a large wooden chopping board that I had dusted flour over. I wore a glove to knead to keep the heat of my body off the gingerbread and to keep my hands clean!

I put it into the fridge to help make it easier to roll, as the dough was quite soft.

About now is a good idea to preheat your oven to 180C! By the time you roll out the dough and cut all of the shapes it should be heated!

Roll out between 2 sheets of baking paper until approximately 3mm thick. Cut gingerbread shapes from the dough and place on baking paper in biscuit trays. Bake for 10 minutes or until lightly golden.

I would like to point out too that the different sized biscuits will cook at different rates, it usually takes me a few trays to remember this and so the larger biscuits will be perfect texture and the smaller ones will be hard!

Reroll dough as many times as necessary. Cool on trays.

1 egg white
1 ½ cups pure icing sugar, sifted

For the icing, make sure that you use beaters to properly beat the egg white to peaks then gradually add the icing sugar. I made this once and I did not think it clear in the recipe - so I just used a wooden spoon. The icing did not set properly!

Divid icing evenly into bowls and tint as desired. Keep bowls covered when not using the icing. Spoon icing into a piping bag and decorate biscuits as desired.

Christmas cooking

We are having C's family over for Christmas lunch today, early since C is going back to work on Christmas Eve and will not be around. For dessert I have made Praline Semifreddo, out of the Sweet Food cookbook. It seemed pretty straightforward, and I guessed (correctly!) that the weather might be very warm and a frozen dessert appreciated.

The most complicated part of the recipe was making the praline. I was a little nervous about melting sugar in a pot over the stove. I had one experience when I was at school and I managed to burn one of my mother's pots so badly that it was thrown away! The recipe said to tip the sugar from side to side to allow it to heat evenly. I found that there were clumps of melted sugar that formed, and I was worried that I had wrecked the sugar - and possibly the pan! Still, I persevered, and eventually all of the sugar dissolved and I had a nice liquid.

One thing that I did not realise, not having done it before, is how quickly the sugar set once the heat was taken away, so I needed to work very quickly after adding the almonds to mix it all toghether and lay it on the greased baking tray to set. Next time I will work a little more quickly, as I think I could have utilised more of the toffee if i had been quicker.

I had wanted to find a recipe for a biscuit to have with coffee. I had visions of a vanilla flavoured biscuit, vaguely round in shape and covered in icing sugar. I was quite unable to find what I was looking for, and ended up settling on a recipe for a Greek Almond Biscuit. It was perfect too, as it meant that I could use some of the frozen egg whites that I had left over from my custard making efforts!

As these things go, I did not check the amount of almond meal that I had until after I had partially defrosted the egg white, and the amount left meant that I needed to find an alternative recipe. I found a recipe for Italian Choc Hazelnut Cookies on Best Recipes. I am usually reluctant to try a recipe from an unknown source, preferring sites such as the Australian Women's Weekly or Exclusively Food, however I was running out of time! The recipe seemed straight forward and I was taken with the idea of leaving them in a warmed oven overnight to cook, rather than having to cook them for several hours as most of the meringue recipes required.

Constructing the mix was fairly straight forward. I had a packet of hazelnut meal in the pantry, and chopped the chocolate rather than processed it as I did not wish to make another appliance dirty - it was around 11:30pm!

3 egg whites
125g dark chocolate, chopped (I used Cadbury Old Gold)
125g hazelnut meal
1/4 cup caster sugar

Preheat oven to 160C and line a tray with baking paper.
Place egg whites into mixer and beat.
Once soft peaks start to form add sugar in slowly, taking care to retain a shiny appearance to the egg whites.
Fold chocolate and hazelnut meal into egg mixture until well combined.
Use a dessertspoon to place dollops of mix onto tray and place into oven.
Turn oven off and let residual heat cook the biscuits (may take a few hours).

This morning when I opened the oven, I was disappointed that the biscuits were still quite wet - they tasted lovely but did not hold together when lifted off the try - they obviously had not had enough heat! I thought that maybe my oven did not hold heat as well as the person who had posted the recipe, so as I type the biscuits are back in the oven, waiting for it to cool down. I figured I would try the same technique a second time and see how it goes!


Recooking them has led to a harder, browner biscuit. I think perhaps the biscuits could be smaller and the suggested cooking technique of the original recipe may work. Also that would mean nicer, bite sized biscuits to have with a cup of tea. Heaven!

Donna Hay Fruit Mince Pies

Fruit mince pies are one of my favourite foods! I always look forward to Christmas and getting to eat fruit mince pies. I bought some pies from my local bakery recently, and was disappointed, as they were more pastry and not enough fruit mince! (Take note, this it my personal preference, as I love fruit cake and fruit mince. I know that others will prefer there to be more pastry!)

I thought that I would give it a go to make some fruit mince pies, and I have a few recipes in my collection of books. The recipe I used was from Donna Hay Simple Essentials: Christmas. I essentially followed it, modifications explained below.

First of all I made the fruit mince:
1 large apple, peeled, core cut out and grated
1/3 cup sultanas
1/4 cup raisins (the recipe called for candied peel. Yuck.)
1/3 cup currants
1/3 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon mixed spice
30g butter, melted
2 tablespoons sherry

Mix well, cover and refrigerate for 24 hours.

I have to confess that I am not very good at following instructions to the letter. So, I omitted the candied peel and substituted raisins. I am pretty sure that I put more butter and sherry in that was recommended. As well, I made the fruit mince on Saturday and it is only tonight, Monday, that I have actually made some of the pies.




So, to the pastry. The recipe calls for 700g of store bought shortcrust pastry, or use the recipe included in the book. The shortcrust pastry recipe makes 350g, and the quantities to me seemed more than sufficient for making 22 pies. In this instance I made only one quantity of pastry.

Process 2 cups plain flour with 145g butter in a food processor until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. With the motor running, add enough iced water to form a dough. Knead lightly then wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

I was a little sketchy about the amount of water needed, and my (borrowed from Mum!) food processor is a little gutless so I was worried that I might burn it out! I ended up not waiting until the dough balled, and instead turned it onto a floured chopping board to bring it together.



One thing that I like to do when working with pastry is to use a glove (or gloves). These disposable gloves protect the hands but also help to keep the heat off the pastry. Magic!

The pastry is then to be rolled to 2mm thick. I used a 78mm biscuit cutter to cut rounds that I then put into a patty tray. When I had filled them up I placed the tray into the freezer to help rest the pastry while I made the stars! While I was working with the pastry it seemed quite elastic, and it was really difficult to roll. I don't know if this is because I have overworked the pastry or if it is because I did not put enough water in. I shall have to see how the pies turn out.

Once I had made the stars, I pulled the pastry out of the freezer and put the filling into the pastry cases. The stars went on top, and were brushed with beaten egg and sprinkled with caster sugar.



I cooked them for 14 minutes at 170C in a fan forced oven - I usually drop the temperature around 10C from a recipe for the fan force.

I have pulled them out of the oven, and sampled. The pastry was nice and light and a little crisp, so very nice. Quite different from the heavier pastries of the bought pies, that was maybe because my pastry was rolled so thinly.

I used half of the pastry that I made to make 12 pies, with leftovers in the bin. So I do not know what you would do with the 700g of the original recipe. Perhaps my idea of 2mm is different from what was intended.

I am hoping that they will still be crisp in the morning, and that the fruit mince will not make the pastry soggy!!