Be Excellent To Each Other

Schism!

I like marzipan in other things. Can't eat it solo though

There's a block in the kitchen and I'm having to restrain myself from just going and taking a bite out of it.

POTW for correctness

Thought I’d give my mince pies with marzipan top a go. I overfilled them (is that even possible? Yes), but they are otherwise perfect. They taste amazing.

Other than the slightly sticky bit on the top 5-8mm of pastry due to overfill, they are perfect.

Should have made the pastry cases 10cm instead of 9cm rounds.

Used the rest of the shortcrust with some grated sharp cheddar and parmesan, black pepper and a sprinkle of cayenne for some savoury biscuits, which are just baking now.

Forgot the pics, like a noob.

They look lush

Thank you! They do taste really nice.

I’ve got to make another batch on Christmas Eve or Father Christmas will have to share the reindeer’s carrots.

My MiL makes mince pies with a marzipan later underneath the mince. They're great!

I did consider something similar. Or grating/finely chopping some into the mincemeat, but I do really love toasted/baked marzipan so it makes a good ‘lid’.

For science you should do all three.

Do they taste of the appropriate fruits?

Nope, marzipan! So good!

Gah!

So. Good

I wouldn’t ruin marzipan but sullying it with fruit. I like fruit, but marzipan is better.

I’ve made some mince pies. Different from last year’s marzipan topped ones, these are gingerbread mince pies.

A short and slightly sweet gingerbread pastry with ginger and cinnamon, filled with a mixture of mincemeat and some very finely chopped stem ginger in syrup (with some of the syrup added).

I’m freezing them like this, will take out of the tray once they’re frozen in a day or two, then I’ll pop them in a bag. On Christmas Eve or whatever apparently they’ll cook from frozen just fine.

Oh, and little gingerbread man lids.

I forgot to say that the gingerbread mince pies were excelling, and the stem ginger and ginger syrup just lifted them so beautifully that I adored them.

Today (NYE) we have a tradition of having a big Indian food meal, so I’m making pudla, dahl, pilaf, etc, and I had some filo left over from the other day so I have made samosas…



Mince pie samosas! I had the idea whilst I was struggling to sleep last night. I had some leftover fruit mincemeat so instead of a savoury filling made these mince pie ones. I do have some savoury ones as well to have with tea tonight, but these were sun and a super quick way to make a few mince pies if you’re in a hurry, and you definitely get a good filling to pastry ratio this way, and they’re a bit of a novelty. Sorry for the rubbish photo. We are barely making daylight here at the moment.

Oh! And I made Russell a mince pie toastie a couple of weeks back. That’s great for using up any leftover mincemeat. Just make sure it’s not lava-hot as you tuck in.

Super ideas Mimi! They look really tasty.

Mince pie toastie!

End of Q1 enquiry -- how was this? It's an intriguing idea, one I can imagine Mini Fop the elder being well into. What kind of bread did you use?

Super delicious! Would eat every day. Just used regular Warburton's brown bread.

Indeed. Regular bread and a toastie maker that Ashens recommended at one point in time.

A couple of weeks ago I made a mincemeat Bread & Butter pudding, where I used clementine and brandy mincemeat in the fruit layers as well as the other fruit. It was absolutely lovely, and Russell’s dad and Darwin polished off second helpings until there was none left.

Nice, to the toastie maker I go. At some point over the weekend. Will report back!

Made my first mince pies ahead of the Christmas season this year as I made a huge batch of 5 large jars of mincemeat a few weeks ago and I was feeling a bit nervous about it to be honest, so I wanted to make a test batch of pies.

They’re just hand pies, so not shapes or baked in a pie tin of any sort, but man alive they came out well. The mincemeat is good. I put in twice the amount of alcohol as the recipe called for, and I think I might add even more before I spoon it into the pies next time (it’ll be fine, nobody will be driving…)

The pastry was just 190g of flour and 130g butter pulsed in a food processor until fine breadcrumbs, then add one egg and 65g caster sugar, pulsed again until it’s a dough. Chill for 15 minutes, then make pies, brush with milk, sprinkle with brown sugar. 200° fan for 18 minutes.

I’m writing this here so I can write it down properly later.

Am I right to be irritated by the mince pie illustrations for the first and fourth of these stats?

Do they not understand the number 14??

14 sounds like 40, and that could be about 40% of a pie, could it have been a misheard instruction?

But yes, that is terrible.

My mother just sent me a link to these:

I'm beginning to think you're trying to make me angry now!!

I bought some today

Will report back.

Ma had some and said they were lovely.

She was wrong though, because they are horrible.

I found an alternative to mince pies in Sainsbury’s today.

HAVE AN ECCLEFECHAN

It took me ages to find out that's pronounced eckle-feck-uhn not eh-clef-e-shan - I assumed it was a french invention!

We had to stop buying them, because they are impossible to stop eating.

Well, that/is/ a surprise!!

I trusted her judgement. To be fair all of the reviews I’ve seen say they are really nice, but to me they taste like someone has a bag of chicken crisps and filled it with icing sugar.

We read it as ‘ekklefekken’, I think because I assumed it had something to do with Eccles/ eccles cakes, being full of currants, but no

When I was in Scotland years back I visited a cafe at a country estate. Because I was feeling frivolous, I had a slice of ecclefechan with a shot of Auchentoshan.

Bless you

Auchentoshan Sounds like a German car manufacturer.

Greggs mince pie with Bayleys extra thick cream is delicious.