Christmas Cooking Recipes – Chocolate Mince Pies

Christmas cooking Recipes are by far the best – it is my favourite time of the year, but this year I wanted to do things a bit different, hence – Chocolate Mince Pies.

What you will need:

350g Plain Flour
50g Plain Dark Chocolate – chopped
1 large Egg – lightly beaten
3 tablespoons Cocoa Powder
200g Butter – chilled and cubes
6 tablespoons Icing Sugar
750g Mincemeat
1-2 tablespoons Ice Cold Water
75g Pecan Nuts (optional – I didn’t use these because of Sam’s allegies)
3 tablespoon Cranberry Jelly or Apricot Glaze
Icing for Dusting

Making the Chocolate Pastry

Mix the Cocoa Powder, Icing Sugar and Flour together in a bowl

Make a breadcrumb consistancy by adding the Butter and rubbing together with your fingertips

Pour in 1 tablespoon of water and the beaten egg

Mix it all until it all starts to blend together (adding more water if necessary)

Knead together until it forms a smooth consistancy, wrap in cling film and them chill in the fridge for an hour

Making the cases for your yummy Chocolate and Mincemeat

On a floured surface roll out the pastry

Cut your round cases approximately 5 inches, using a saucer, cutter or anything that you can get your hands on. I used the top of a large mug. Us Moms are good at improvising!

Get as many circles as you are able to with all the leftover bits of pastry

Either put cake cases in the deep muffin tin or grease it

Add your circles to the muffin tin, pressing them down so you can fill them.

Filling up!

Add the mincemeat but don’t overfill them as you need a bit of pastry around the sides to cover or part cover the top of your mincemeat

Top with the Chocolate and Pecan Nuts

Make a rim by pressing the edges of the pastry up and over the filling

Brush the tops with Cranberry Jelly or Apricot Glaze

Put in the oven for 30 minutes on Gas Mark 6 or 200 degrees, checking after 20 minutes that they have not started to burn

Then leave to cool

Voila!

That’s it! Just dust them with Icing Sugar and serve or if you are freezing them like me put into containers and freeze and dust with Icing Sugar just before serving.