VIENNESE WHIRL MINCE PIES
November 18, 2017
Who ever said it was too early to eat mince pies?
Well, whoever it was - they were lying!
We are fully immersed into Christmas already, there's no waiting until 1st December in the Sharkett Sisters household. Give us all the mulled wine, stollen and mince pies you can find! Because Christmas just isn't Christmas without mince pies! After finding some amaaaazing Amaretto mince meat in Waitrose, we knew it was time to get baking. This time around, we wanted to try out something a little different; and these mince pies with a viennese whirl top are just delightful! They taste divine and bring back all the Christmas memories ~ perfection!
Amaretto mince meat is not essential but highly recommended!
Ingredients:
For the Pastry...
200g Plain flour
1 tsp Mixed spice
100g Butter
1 Large egg
(Or you can just buy 300g ready made shortcrust pastry)
For the Filling...
200g Mincemeat
150g Butter
150g Plain flour
30g Cornflour
30g Icing Sugar
To make the pastry, mix together the plain flour and mixed spice in a large bowl, then using your fingertips, rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs. Next, beat the egg and mix into the dough until it starts to come together. If its a little dry you can add a drop of cold water. Wrap the dough in cling film and leave in the fridge for around 30 mins to chill.
While your dough is chilling you can make the viennese whirl topping, start by beating the butter until very soft. Then add the flour, cornflour and icing sugar and beat until you have a smooth paste.
When the dough has chilled, remove it from the fridge and lightly flour your surface. Grab a rolling pin and roll the dough out to around 5mm thick. Using a round cookie cutter cut out 12 circles of dough. Try to get as many as you can each time you roll the dough out otherwise it will start to get a little tough.
Place the pastry circles into the tray and add around a teaspoon of mincemeat to each one. Try not to overfill them or they will bubble over in the oven! (some of ours did, oops, we got a little carried away with the delicious amaretto mincemeat!)
Spoon all of the viennese whirl paste into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and pipe a small spiral on top of the pies. Don't worry if it doesn't cover all of the mincemeat as it will spread in the oven. Before you cook the pies, leave them in the fridge for another 30 mins to harden the viennese whirl topping. While they are cooling, preheat the oven to 200ºC/180ºC Fan/Gas Mark 6.
Once they have chilled, cook the mince pies for 15-20 minutes, until the tops are just starting to turn golden. Leave them to cool in the tray.
Take your delicious mince pies out of the tray and dust with icing sugar, and you're ready to indulge!
Thanks so much for reading this post!
We love to bake our way through December so thought why not start now?!
What are your fave bakes at Christmas? Let us know in the comments below.
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Lots of love, Antonia and Imogen x
