Fruit Mince Pies with Orange Pastry

Fruit mince pies are a Christmas favourite but have you ever tried them with orange pastry? This lovely recipe comes from British food writer Jocelyn Dimbleby. She describes these as her most famous recipe and nearly 50 years later people are still making them. I'm also making my own fruit mince although a good jar of store-bought fruit mince will work just as well. So this fruit has been soaking for two weeks in brandy and I've been stirring it every day. If you don't like brandy you can use a dark rum or maybe a sweet sherry and if you don't like alcohol just substitute it for orange juice but it doesn't need to mature for two weeks then. And all the fruit is plumped up and it smells really good. So all I did to make this was I took a kilo of mixed dried fruit and then I added 150 grams of chopped dates and then 150 grams of glace cherries chopped, 100 grams of mixed peel, 2 tablespoons of marmalade and if you don't like marmalade you can use a plum jam. I put 2 teaspoons of mixed spice in and then 220 mils of brandy. And you should put this in a cool dark place and it was so hot here at one stage that I actually had to put it in the fridge and I found after about a week it needed more brandy so I added a couple more tablespoons because you don't want any liquid at the bottom but you do want it quite glossy and then I ended up adding the whole bottle which is 375 ml of brandy but that's It's now absorbed all that brandy and it's still nice and shiny and glossy and now it's time to finish it off. So I simply put it into. A pot now this makes a lot you can easily halve this recipe and then to this fruit mince here I add 175 grams of butter and 120 grams of apple puree and actually I couldn't get just apples this is apple and pear but it still works and this adds lovely moisture to the fruit mince helps it all sort of bind together and Gives it that lovely jammy texture. Or you could use stewed apples or baby food, and that's it, no sugar. So what I do now over a moderately slow heat is I just bring it up to a simmering point, stirring it often, and by that stage, the butter will have all melted. So that's been about 15 minutes, just slowly melting that butter. And it looks delicious. It's thick and it's unctuous and it's glossy and it smells beautiful. And what I like to do is just taste it now, just in case it needs any more spice. That to me tastes delicious. It's lovely and boozy. You see? And I'll pop them into these glass jars. Do you know what? A bit of this with some cream or ice cream is so yummy. This orange pastry is really delicious. It's very rich. It's melting in your mouth and crumbly. And you can use a food processor or you can use your fingers to rub in the butter or grate the butter in. But today I'm using a pastry cutter and I've halved this recipe today, but I'll put the full quantity on the website as well as this half version. So simply into a bowl, I put 250 grams of plain flour. And if you're using gluten-free plain flour, just for a little bit of insurance, I put a quarter of a teaspoon of xanthan gum, 87.5 grams of icing sugar, and I sift those two into a bowl. And because I've halved this recipe, the measurements sound very precise, but I have 187.5 grams of cold butter that I chopped up really small. And using the pastry cutter, I'm going to work that in until all the butter is in tiny little pieces. And I just go back and forth. I clear it out every so often. And that doesn't take long, just a couple of minutes. Now the full recipe calls for the finely grated zest of one orange. Be really careful not to take the white pith bit because that will make them a little bit bitter. So I find a microplane works best for this. So it's up to you how orangey you like it. And I'll just stir the zest through. Depending on your flour, depends how much liquid you need, how much orange juice. That's half an orange. And because this is gluten-free flour, sometimes I feel it needs a little bit more. So I'll add another half a tablespoon or so. For me, it's easier if I get it out on the bench and I can feel it that way. I can feel if it needs any more orange juice. It is coming together. I don't think that needs any more orange juice. Oh, you can really smell the orange. It's lovely, this pastry, but it needs to firm up. And depending on how cold your kitchen is and how cold your refrigerator is it could take 30 minutes or it could take an hour and a half. So I weighed the fruit mints that I made and it came in at 1.9 kilos and it's been in the fridge so the butter has solidified a bit. Now this fruit mince I would keep in the fridge for two weeks and if you don't use it in that time frame just freeze it. It freezes beautifully in a container. Now there's one thing I like to do before I put this in the fruit mince tarts and that is just loosen it up a little bit, not with much, maybe a couple of tablespoons. I'm using apple puree here and you know this is optional you don't have to do it it's just my preference. So the fruit mince has got a little bit more moisture in it. Now this is a patty tin tray. They're really hard to get actually, but they're quite shallow. They produce smaller, daintier fruit mince pies. Even though there's lots of butter in the recipe and these are non-stick, I'm just going to put a tiny little bit of butter in each one and a bit on the top. So I've worked out that an eight centimeter cutter is good for the base and a six centimeter one for the lid for these shallower patty pan type ones. And the pastry has been in the fridge for about an hour and 20. And it's nice and firm. Now, if you make the normal recipe, which is double this, I think it's best to split the dough in half and work on a half a quantity first while the other one's in the fridge so it doesn't, you know, get too soft. So I lightly flour the bench and lightly flour my rolling pin. And I'm just gonna roll this out. And you want a thickness about the same as a $1 coin. It's a very luxurious pastry, this one. That orange zest smells so lovely. So I'll cut the bases out first and as I cut the bases out I just gently put them in and press them down as far as the patty tin will go. And I need one more base and I'll just re-roll it. It's quite a warm day here today and It doesn't take long for the butter to melt a bit and the pastry to get softer. And I'll mark my lids, the smaller size cutter. And before I put the lids on, obviously, I'll put the fruit mince in. And being the heavy handed cook I am, I'm showing restraint here today so they don't all burst open. So a good teaspoon full. What I have here is just one egg that I've beaten and I find it easier if I get the lid, paint on some of that egg wash and then put it on top like that and that sort of seals it. So my pastry has gone quite soft because of my hot kitchen. I'm going to pop them into the fridge before I put them in the oven so the butter firms up again, just for, you know, 20 to 30 minutes. It's firmed up in the fridge and all I do now is put some egg wash over the top and I have my oven preheated to 190 degrees Celsius conventional, which is 170 degrees with a fan. And these should take about 20 to 25 minutes in that oven. Jocelyn's recipe actually says to bake it at a higher temperature for a lesser period of time. I just find the 190 works better for me. But I'll put her recipe as well on the website. And this is not in Jocelyn's recipe neither but I like to do it. Is I just get some caster sugar and just sprinkle it over the top. And the sugar sort of caramelizes. Okay, these are going in the oven. In my excitement to get them in the oven, I forgot to put a hole in the middle. I like to do it to allow the steam to escape. So here is the orange fruit mince pies that have had 25 minutes. But these ones in particular have to really cool down because they're so short that pastry that they're very delicate until they cool. I'm just going to carefully go around the edge with a sharp knife. They come out quite easy. And these are the finished orange pastry fruit mince pies and just perfect with a cup of tea. Joslyn also has a deluxe version where she simply mixes some cream cheese with sugar. 20 grams of sugar for every 100 grams of cream cheese. Then she spreads a little teaspoon of the mixture over the fruit mince and for a lovely burst of tartness adds a fresh cranberry or in my case here a fresh raspberry before putting on the pastry lid. Now I tried this with the orange pastry but personally I found the combination just a little too rich. However with ordinary shortcrust pastry like these ones I thought they were delicious. So that's just another little idea if you already have a favourite shortcrust pastry recipe. But my favourite is just the orange pastry and the fruit mince. These fruit mince pies are at their best freshly made when the orange pastry is lovely and short and crumbly. But they also freeze beautifully. Jocelyn says you can simply thaw them, warm them up, and they're like brand new. Thank you so much for watching. I really hope you enjoy this one if you give it a go. I understand why it's been around for decades and people have been making it every year because it's absolutely delicious. And if you like the flavour of orange, I think I think you'll really enjoy this pastry. Have a great week. Hopefully I'll see you again soon.