Mince Pie Pastry

Over the past week I have made three batches of mince pies and I used three different recipes for the pastry, some of which can be found in Nigella's Christmas.  Like the mincemeat I have combined some of the recipes together to make the best one.  

Ingredients:

200g plain flour

30g ground almonds

3 tbps of sugar

125g cold butter

1 egg or the juice of 1 orange 

For the first batch of mince pies I used a recipe which used orange juice instead of the egg, this is also very nice, but this recipe will need an additional 100g for flour. 

First I combined the flour, sugar, almonds and butter together until they became a fine crumbly mix and all the butter was well mixed in.  Then I added the egg / orange juice and mixed will. If the dough is too wet or too dry then add some more cold water or flour until the dough is workable.  Then I put it in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up.  I divided it up and rolled out half to make the dices.  I placed them into a muffin tin and filled each one with 2 tsp of mincemeat (see mince meat for mince pies under recipes/preserves)   Then I rolled out the rest of the dough and the girls cut out stars and bells for the tops. I then cooked them until they were golden brown, this took about 20 minutes in a oven that was a 180'C. They taste best served warm with whipped cream. Once the mincemeat is made it doesn't take long to make these yummy little pies.  I am feeling much more in the christmas mood now that I have made and eaten lots of mince pies, and I can still eat more.   

******MERRY CHRISTMAS*******