I love Christmas time, one of my favourite parts of Christmas is all the amazing food I get to share with my family and friends. My favourite food at Christmas time would have to be Fruit Mince Pies. I remember my mum teaching me how to make the special fruit filling and the shortcrust pastry when I was really young. Every year I get busy in the kitchen and I will make a few batches of these fruit mince pies. Please don’t be tempted to buy the ones you see in the supermarket, have you ever looked at the long list of ingredients on one of those packets! Trust me you do not need nasty vegetable oils or sugar to make fruit mince pies taste great.
I recommend using organic dried fruit for this recipe. Sultanas and raisins are dried varieties of grapes. Grapes are a heavily sprayed food crop, even after washing they will still have high pesticide residue. Good reason to always buy organic grapes, sultanas, raisins and wine!
The pastry in this recipe is grain and gluten free, I’ve used coconut flour, almond meal and tapioca flour. This makes the pastry a little bit tricky to work with, be patient, follow all my tips below and you’ll be fine.
Christmas Fruit Mince Pies
- December 2, 2016
- 12 pies
- 40 min Prep
- 40 min Cook
- Moderate Difficulty
Ingredients
- 1 cup almond meal
- 1/2 cup tapioca flour
- 1/4 cup coconut flour
- 4 tbs coconut palm sugar
- 150g butter
- 1 egg, beaten (optional)
- 1 apple, coarsely grated
- 1 cup raisins
- 1 cup sultanas
- 1/2 cup mixed peel
- 1/2 cup almond flakes
- Juice & rind of 1 orange
- 3 tbs brandy (optional)
- 1 tsp mixed spice
- 1 tsp cinnamon
Directions
- Step 1
- Preheat your oven to 200ºC.
- Step 2
- In a large bowl combine the almond meal, tapioca flour, coconut flour and coconut palm sugar. Cut the butter into small cubes and add to the bowl. Using your fingertips rub the butter into the pastry. Be patient, this will take time, once the butter is fully rubbed in you’ll see your dough start to come together. Press the dough into a large ball, cover it with cling wrap and pop it into the fridge to firm up for 15 minutes. If your mixture is crumbly and won’t come together into a ball just add a tiny bit of water and keep adding water until the dough forms. Make sure not to add too much water, you’ll more than likely only need 2-3 tablespoons. Keep in mind that this dough will be crumblier then normal pastry dough.
- Step 3
- Combine the grated apples, sultanas, raisins, mixed peel, almond flakes, orange juice and rind, brandy and spices into a large bowl. Mix well and set aside.
- Step 4
- Grease a 12-hole muffin tray with butter. Remove your pastry from the fridge and remove the cling wrap. Flour your bench with tapioca flour and begin to gently roll out your dough. Be gentle when you’re rolling this out and don’t be too concerned about any cracks that appear, this dough is crumblier than normal pastry dough. Roll your dough out until it’s about 3mm thick. Cut 12 pastry circles and then gently lift each circle into each of your 12 muffin holes. The pastry will crack and crumble a bit as you move it to the muffin hole, simply press the pastry into the bottom of the muffin hole so that it all comes together again and there are no holes or gaps. Once you have created the 12 pastry bases in each muffin hole spoon 1 tablespoon of the fruit mixture in.
- Step 5
- Top each pie with a triangle, star or circle of pastry. Before popping these in the oven give them a brush with the beaten egg, this will help give the pastry a nice golden colour in the oven.
Pop these into the oven and cook them for 20 minutes. Make sure you cool them completely before attempting to remove them from the muffin holes, otherwise you’ll end up with a handful of crumbs!
