Often associated with the festive period, Mince Pies have been a staple sweet dish for some time in midwinter. Today's blog recipe gives a modern twist on these type of pies that does not include gluten.
The fog had rolled round the park and even the next village, with its Comptonesque Council Estate, could not be seen. There was a sense of claustrophobia and already it seemed a little dark in the house even though it was just 2pm. In the lounge and the conservatory, coats and shoes not belonging to me rested in their usual places, just as they had done for a couple of years. They were seemingly half complete without their owner. Looking at them made me think the house was like one where one of the occupants had just passed away before Christmas and the survivor had not been able to bring themselves to move the items away.
Against this backdrop it was easy to feel like I was on a journey dark places, and yet I had much to be happy about. I had somewhere to go for Christmas, lots of friends to meet with via video link or outdoors with the Dogg and my team and I had achieved much, against the odds, at work during 2021.
Whatever happened next, it was time to get into the Christmas Spirit. Remembering that consuming more than one meal containing gluten in a week makes my mind do strange things, I resolved to make some Gluten Free Mince Pies.
On the player was something upbeat in the shape of Meatloaf's 1993 comeback "Bat out of Hell Part 2: Back Into Hell". The video for opening "I Would Do anything for love (But I won't do that)" seems to feature someone hurriedly driving a car to a deserted house where once someone well-loved lurked.
So to the recipe which goes like this:
200 grams of Gluten Free Plain Flour.
125 grams of Unsalted Butter.
A jar of Mincemeat. I used some non-gluten free Mincemeat strongly flavoured with Port.
A tablespoon of tap water.
The first job was to cut the Butter into small cubes and add it to the mixing bowl. Then came the Plain Flour. I rubbed these ingredients in until I saw that they had formed golden breadcrumbs.
After that I stirred them together using a butter knife and dropping in a tablespoon of tap water to help bind the mixture together.
The thing with Gluten Free Pastry is that it is often moister than normal pastry and harder to roll out because it sticks to the rolling pin. The best approach is to knead it flat using some spare flour to grip and then chill the rolled out pastry in the fridge for half an hour. After that it is easier to use it.
I followed this approach and after chilling the pastry I cut circles out of the pastry and placed them in greased bun tins and added the Mincemeat. I then covered them more pastry to form small pies.
The mince pies were then placed in the oven and cooked on gas mark 4 for 20 minutes.
So what was the difference between these mince pies and ones with gluten in? Well the pastry had a lighter taste and with the use of more butter there was a more golden colour to the pastry. They were certainly an interesting diversion this Christmas and one worth taking.
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