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Mince Pies – plated and served
Cakes & PastriesChristmasDessertsVegetarianBritish

Mince Pies

Small British Christmas tarts with a dried fruit filling, meat-free for two hundred years despite the name.

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Preparation
45 min
Cook/bake time
20 min
Total
2 hr 5 min
Difficulty
Medium
Calories
306 kcal
Servings
18 pieces
Prep
45 min
Cooking & baking
20 min
Resting
1 hr

Only 1 hr 5 min of that is hands-on – the rest takes care of itself.

Small British Christmas tarts with a dried fruit filling, meat-free for two hundred years despite the name. The name recalls the medieval original, in which minced meat was preserved with fruits and spices; the fruits, the spices, and the name have remained. In Great Britain, they are as much a part of Christmas as cookies are here.

Why this works

Shortcrust pastry becomes crumbly because the fat coats the flour particles and prevents them from absorbing water and forming gluten during kneading. The less gluten that forms, the more tenderly the dough breaks. That is why the butter must be cold and the dough worked briefly: warm butter absorbs into the flour instead of coating it, and long kneading builds exactly the network you do not want. The filling, on the other hand, needs no cooking time at all; it has long been preserved by sugar and alcohol. The twenty minutes in the oven are therefore solely for the dough, and because the filling does not need to cook, it is filled cold and the oven can be hot.

Step-by-step instructions

Conventional · 200 °Cor Fan 180 °C

  1. Cook the mincemeat

    Put all the filling ingredients except the rum in a saucepan and let them simmer over low heat for twenty minutes until the apples break down and the mixture is thick. Remove from the heat, stir in the rum, and let cool completely. Warm filling would soften the shortcrust pastry before it goes into the oven.

  2. Knead the shortcrust pastry

    Knead the flour, ice-cold butter cubes, powdered sugar, egg, and salt only until the dough just holds together, a maximum of one minute. The shorter, the crumblier the result will be. Wrap it in foil and chill for an hour.

  3. Cut out

    Roll out the dough to about 3 mm thin and cut out eighteen large circles for the bases and eighteen smaller ones for the lids. Place the bases in a greased muffin tin and press them in gently. Work quickly: as soon as the butter in the dough softens, it will tear when inserted.

  4. Fill and close

    Put a heaping teaspoon of cold filling into each base, but only fill them three-quarters full. Put the lids on, press the edges firmly with a fork, and prick each lid once so the steam can escape. Without this hole, the lids will lift off in the oven.

  5. Bake

    Brush the lids thinly with milk and bake the tarts at 200 °C top/bottom heat for 18 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Let them stand in the tin for five minutes before removing them; when hot, they are still too soft and will break. Serve dusted with powdered sugar.

Our best tips

  • The filling can be made weeks in advance and stored in jars in a cool place. It gets better in the process, just like Christmas pudding; many British households cook it in October.
  • Do not overfill. The mixture expands in the heat, runs over the edge, and sticks the tarts in the tin. Three quarters is the limit.
  • Instead of a closed lid, a star can also be cut out and placed on top. Looks more Christmassy and solves the steam problem by itself.

Tasty variations

With crumble topping

Instead of pastry lids, top with crumbles made from 80 g flour, 50 g butter, and 40 g sugar. A bit more rustic and much faster than cutting out the lids.

Alcohol-free

Replace the rum with apple juice and add an extra teaspoon of lemon juice. The filling will then keep refrigerated for about two weeks instead of several months.

Nutrition facts

Per serving (1 pieces)
Calories306 kcal
Protein4 g
Carbohydrates41 g
– of which sugar24 g
Fat14 g
Fiber2 g

Where the 306 kcal come from

per serving
Calculated from the ingredients – how we do it

We add up reference values for every ingredient and divide by the number of servings. These assumptions are baked in:

  • Reference values per 100 g – for the raw ingredient, exactly as listed.
  • Tinned goods count at drained weight, bone-in meat at purchase weight: you eat about 70 per cent of a chicken thigh and leave the rest.
  • Water evaporates as you cook. The energy stays in the pot, the weight does not – so the figure is per serving, not per 100 g of finished dish.
  • Anything listed without a quantity – “salt and pepper” – is not counted.

A guide value, not a lab measurement: no two onions weigh the same, and fat content varies from pack to pack.

How we calculate nutrition →

Frequently asked questions

Is there really no meat in it?

No, not since the 19th century. The name dates back to the Middle Ages, when minced meat was preserved with sugar, fruits, and spices. All that remains of the meat is the beef suet in traditional recipes, and even that is mostly replaced by butter today.

How many calories does a mince pie have?

Around 305 kcal per piece. A good half comes from the shortcrust pastry, which is one-third butter; the filling itself mainly contributes sugar from the dried fruits.

How long do mince pies keep?

Baked in a tin for about a week, frozen for three months. The unbaked filling, on the other hand, lasts for months and is the part you should prepare in advance.

Why does my shortcrust pastry get hard instead of crumbly?

Kneaded too long or the butter was too warm. Both lead to gluten forming, exactly the opposite of crumbly. The dough can still look slightly crumbly when it goes into the foil.

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