Traditional British mince pies - Special family recipe

Updated: Jan 18, 2021

Every British family in the UK has different recipes for making mince pies. If you have watched the quick video of making mince pies with my father-in-law on The Wifey Life's Facebook or Instagram, today is the blog sharing our special family recipe.

I know we are over Christmas and I should have posted Christmas blogs at Christmas time. My apologies if you have to wait until now to read Christmas blogs. However, I hope you'll enjoy the blog and give this recipe a try if you have a sweet tooth like mine.

If you have tried the mince pie at Waitrose, M&S, Tesco or bakery shop, you'll find the pastry quite hard, thick and dry. That's why my father-in-law, Jerry, has his own recipe for making the mince pie's pastry softer, thinner and dry enough to hold the mincemeat inside. That's the special tip here! Instead of using mince pie's pastry recipe, he uses the apple shortcake recipe and it works like magic. Everything melts in your mouth from the first bite and the taste is absolutely delicious, neither too sweet nor too floury. With a cup of tea or a mug of hot chocolate, you can surely set your world around at peace.

Shortcake as mince pie's pastry

Butter - 150g
Golden unrefined caster sugar - 150g
An egg
Plain flour - 250g
Baking powder - 1 teaspoon

Step 1: Chop the butter into small cubes, Then, add the butter cubes and caster sugar into a mixing bowl.

Step 2: Mix plain flour with baking powder.

Step 3: You can use a stand mixer or a hand mixer. Mix the butter and caster sugar well.

Step 4: Crack an egg into the mixing bowl. Then, continue mixing it.

Step 5: Slowly add the mixture of plain flour and baking powder spoon by spoon into the mixing bowl and mix them well until the mixture gets soft.

Step 6: Prepare the mince pie baking tray by rubbing some butter on.

Step 7: Take the mixture out and combine it into a dough.

Step 8: Use the rolling pin to roll the dough flat, not too thin or thick.

This is the master baker, aka my father-in-law

Step 9: Make round shape pastry and lay them in the baking tray.

Step 10: Make smaller round shape pastry and set them aside because we will use them as covers after adding the stuffing.

Make mincemeat, or buy it

In the UK, you can buy mincemeat at any supermarket during Christmas time. Therefore, to save time, we buy it from Tesco and it tastes delicious. If you can't find the mincemeat at where you live, you can always make it because it's not difficult.

You can follow this easy mincemeat recipe by BBC Good Food.