Wondercat Christmas: Mo Farah Mince Pies

Hello! It’s totally Christmas time!

Here at Wondercat we’ve been fabulizing the tree and decking the halls…the season has us in its tinselly grasp!
This weekend called for a bit of festive munchables, but, to be honest, we were more about the eating than the baking…time to whip up some lightening fast mincemeat and turn it into pies…so bloody scrumptious they’ll make you throw your arms wide and pull the “Farah face”!

Yes Mo, they’re that good.

Mo Farah Mince Pies

Pretty shot huh? We were simultaneously holding the plate in front of the tree and photographing…life behind the curtain ain’t so glamorous!

Mincemeat

equal weights of:

• Dried fruits of various kinds-Plump raisins? A sour cherry perhaps? Christmas craisins? How about some candied peel? Throw caution to the wind, live on the edge, do it for Baby Jesus!
• Cooking apples-peeled and chopped into little bits…not the cores, dumbass!

quarter weight of:

• Brown sugar
• Ginger beer
• Butter
• Almonds, toasted and chopped
• 2 tsp mixed spice
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• Brandy, or some other delightful booze
• Lemon zest
• Orange zest

So, the equation for mincemeat is as follows (food algebra, brain food):
(4x(fruit+apple)+x(sugar+beer+butter+almonds)+spice+zest+booze)-bakers scoffing privileges

Just call me (P)Einstein! *We know, we know, total cracker joke right? Speaking of cracker jokes we heard THE BEST today…ready for this??! “How does King Wenceslas’ like his pizza?” We’ll pop the answer at the bottom of the post…worth every second of scrolling, we promise you!*

Back to the mince meat…

• Just throw everything in a big ol’ pan (except the brandy and nuts) and boil away until the apples have turned mushy.
• Let it cool for a while then stir in the almonds and as much booze as you can without making it a big sloppy mess…we got a good few glugs in let me tell you! *we had also been drinking the booze so were dancing around in just our pants singing Nicky Minaj…sometimes life calls for a semi-nekkid Minaj moment*.
• Throw it into sterilised jars or as we did, a big lock ‘n’ lock tub and store it in the fridge.

Pastry

• 200g plain flour
• 100g butter-cut into cubes
• couple of tbsp of lemon juice
• pinch o’ salt
• tsp vanilla extract

• Rub butter into flour and salt until breadcrumby
• Cut in lemon juice and vanilla extract with a butter knife until it starts to come together…and a bit of water if needed but not too much…if it’s a big wet mess then you have fooked it up.
• Bring it together into a ball, squish it flat, wrap in cling-film and whack in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. *We used this time to go at the mincemeat with a spoon*

Roll out pastry to 2mm…get a Joseph and Joseph adjustable rolling pin http://www.josephjoseph.com/kitchen-tools/adjustable-rolling-pin as they are AWESOME! Cut out little frilly circles just a little bigger than the pie holes *pie hole *sniggers**

Use some sort of blunt poking device…a little rolling pin, a spatula handle, a dildo… to push the circles down.

Mince them up!

Cut stars the size of the pie holes out of the pastry scraps…DON’T RE-ROLL…it’ll taste like shit!

Plop on a star…oh and I know I totally need a manicure so pipe down Judgey McJudgerson!

• Bake at 175C for 20 minutes until the mincemeat is bubbling and the oven stink o’ Christmas.
• Sprinkle with icing sugar then enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

These pies are tiny, hardly a pie at all. They are actually closer to mini tarts but who has a mince tart? It would be like renaming the iPad mini the iPhone big. Any who, they are a perfect little morsel for a mouthful of Christmas cheer; like Mo Farah and gold medals you can have them all! *Mo probably didn’t eat his gold medals with a glass of wine watching Strictly…but maybe he did? Who knows?*
That’s right kids, go on! Eat all the pies…then bake more and eat them too!

It’s Christmas time!!!!

The moody ambience of a fragrance ad…”Smell like dessert, drive the chubby kids wild…Pie the new fragrance from Wondercat.”

Oh yeah, the joke…”Deep pan, crisp and even!” We laughed until snot shot from our nose…It doesn’t take much to tickle a Wondercat.