English Mince Pies

dairy free egg free nut free

Probably more a tartlet than a pie! I made half the recipe using a tiny muffin pan, and the other half using a small patty pan. They turned out to be a delicious morsel of 'buttery' pastry and rich fruity filling. You could serve these at a cocktail Christmas party as a sweet canape - or just make them the standard size (using a regular 12 cup muffin pan) and gorge yourself.

The original recipe I used included finely chopped slivered almonds  for which I substituted coconut, but you could omit this entirely.

Makes 20 using regular muffin pan, or 40 using mini muffin pan

Filling
2 cups dried mixed fruit
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
50g dessicated coconut (optional)
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and coarsely grated
40g dairy-free margarine (Nuttelex), melted
2 tbsp brandy (optional)
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice
Pinch of ground nutmeg
Icing sugar to dust

Pastry
2 cups plain flour
1/3 cup caster sugar
160g chilled dairy-free margarine, chopped
1 egg replacer
2 tbsp cold water

Finely chop half the mixed fruit. Place in large bowl and add brown sugar, coconut, apple, margarine, brandy, lemon juice, all the spices and the remaining mixed fruit. Stir until well combined. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside overnight (or at least 6 hours), stirring occasionally, to macerate.

Transfer the fruit mixture to a fine sieve over a bowl and stir to remove excess liquid.

To make the pastry, place flour, sugar and margarine in the bowl of a food processor and process until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add egg replacer, water and process until mixture just comes together. Turn onto a clean work surface and shape into a disc. Cover with plastic and rest in fridge for 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180 C. Roll out pastry on lightly floured surface until 5mm thick. Use a round pastry cutter  to cut discs from the pastry. Use a smaller star shaped pastry cutter to cut stars from the remaining pastry.

Line muffin pans with pastry discs and divide the fruit mince among the cases. Top with pastry stars. Bake for 20-25mins (about 12 if making the small ones) or until lightly golden. Set aside in pans for 5 minutes to cool before transferring to wire rack to cool completely. Dust with icing sugar.