Mince Pies


KevRider

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Single digit temperature have restricted project I was attempting to get to but been driven inside changed the focus to a traditional activity which has been neglected for a few years: the making of xmas mince pies!

 

Stroke wise there's not much to tell  measuring progress to date as short falls from normal. Which is itself a progress as this time last year i was still wearing an ankle brace for any extended walking and sleeping a great deal to recover from even moderate effort. Still no significant progress this week but I do seem to be sleeping less during the day.

 

Meanwhile, mince pies! These things seem to be a British thing as my US friends don't usually understand what they are. For me they go back to childhood when mother would make then typically on Christmas Eve. Later in life I took over the habit and would make and eat them of the days approaching Christmas. For health reasons we dropped then from the diet a few years back but Deb has discovered a pastry recipe which is based of coconut oil rather than butter so we reinstated the tradition.  

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The return of dexterity to my left hand meant I could help in cutting and mounting the pastry (top left)

Baked and fresh out the oven ( top right)

Dusted with powdered sugar (bottom left)

Ready to eat during the days approaching Christmas ( bottom right)

 

I think the near death experience fo a stoke has definitely made me appreciate the little things more.

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Christmas "mince" pies are fruit mince not healthy at all. I love them and my Dad makes great ones, often as tarts not pies. fruit mince is dried fruit and grated apple cooked with butter and sugar and spices then soaked in brandy and left for 2 months to "mature".

When recooked in the pie shells it becomes sticky gooey magic toffee. I have an appointment with Dad for Friday to do the baking part. We'll eat them at all Christmas and new year get togethers, so many are "needed"

Kev yours look great! It's nice that you have reinstated the tradition, I've been looking at coconut oil sweet biscuit recipes too, nice to know they work.

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I can't eat them being lactose intolerant, but buy a few in for others to enjoy. I will have dried fruits instead. Love that cooking them can be a family tradition Heather. Very good photos Kevin, makes my  mouth water just looking at them.

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We had to hunt around for vegan acceptable ingredients.  Roberstson's Classic mincemeat is actually butter free, it does use vegetable suet. There has been a growing market in the UK for vegetarian/vegan produce which is where we had the mincemeat imported from. All American product had something unacceptable to Deb. While Heather is right that some mincemeats are traditionally fed with Brandy this is not. But the sugar content is so high it would surprise me if it self ferments:) As far as I can tell the crust and mince have nothing that would trigger lactose intolerance.

 

They taste as god as the ones mother used to make, but do have an after taste of coconut.

 

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Look for refined coconut oil Dad says it's the same as Copha that we used for chocolate crackles and white christmas when I was a kid (did you have them in the UK and US?) the extra refining removes most of the coconut flavour.  So long as your recipe uses melted coconut oil it should work. it's too solid at room temperature to be worked like butter.

 

Dad made a very nice vegan christmas pudding for the vegans at our table this year. It used aquafarba and refined coconut oil to replace egg and butter. Not the same texture as "our" pudding, but if you hadn't been told you wouldn't have known. He found the recipe on the web

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Wayne could eat fruit mince pies till the cows came home!

 

Kev, they look great!

 

I'm not sure if it's because we didn't have a lot of money growing up, or that mum wasn't a cook, but we didn't have anything flash at Christmas.  Except for trifle. Loved trifle and pav at Christmas!

 

💚👑

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Wow, brings back childhood memories of when my mom used to make exactly the same thing. Cleaning out our freezer a week ago, Lesley came across some of these she had made a few years ago. They are now gone. Thanks for the memories.

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