Christmas has arrived 🎄

Today I felt super Christmassy finally getting my Christmas tree up and baking some mince pies! 

Mince pies are one my favourite things to eat at Christmas (along with cheese and pigs in blankets) and my dads are the best so the bar was set pretty high. I started on my mince meat last week with a Lotte Duncan recipe which is wonderfully boozy and yummy!

My plans were to bake a few batches over the next few weeks however a much needed knee operation is happening soon which has put said plans on hold and meant I needed to get cracking now. 

This is something I probably shouldn’t say but rubbing the butter into the flour and sugar is so boring and tedious, definitely one of my least favourite things do but needs must. I didn’t really know how fine to make it and did worry about the butter I could see when I rolled out the pastry but I just crossed my fingers and hoped it would be ok. 

Doing a test batch of three pies was a really good idea as it allowed me to test the timing and temperature and also think about the size of the cutters. I’m still not overly happy with the look of them as I think maybe I need to try a bigger base so that I can seal the top better.

The pastry wasn’t very short but I liked it and it had a slight golden brown colour with a good amount of the delicious filling.

I’m really proud of this first attempt, I just need to try not to demolish them all before Christmas 🤎