The 12 Weeks of Christmas: Week 10-England

 The 12 Weeks of Christmas: Week 10-England

(Source: Britannica.com)

England is a giant part of my DNA. By far, the majority. I have some family rituals we grew up with at Christmas that are British, courtesy of my paternal grandmother, who hails from Canada, with a very English family. She put coins(foil-covered to keep from getting dirty) in cakes, and it wouldn't be a Christmas without the Christmas crackers with the toy, a joke, and a tissue paper crown. I never knew that was an English tradition growing up, I just knew I was the only person I knew who did this. It always felt so special. 

One of the problems with finding a dish to make for a project like this, is that so many of America's Christmas traditions come from England, so I've eaten a lot of their Christmas foods already. Except for one dish: mince pies. Those never truly made their way across the pond, did they? So, since I have never made them before, I knew that was the dish to make. 

I tracked down a recipe, which turned out to be Paul Hollywood's recipe, from The Great British Bake Off, which is one of my favorite shows to watch at the end of a long day and just need something to relax to. Here is the link to the recipe.

I bought a jar of mincemeat before this project started and have been waiting to use it. I really like the idea of doctoring the jarred stuff with fresh fruit. It's pretty sticky sweet and not much texture because it's already cooked, so the fresh fruit adds some nice texture.

Here is the filling all mixed together. The smell is incredible! I'd never had mincemeat so I wasn't sure what to expect.

Here are all the elements for the pies, before they're put together.

This is the butter and flour mixed together. It's almost like shortbread dough at this stage.

Here is the dough with the egg mixed in. I thought it was too dry, but it held up pretty well once I mixed it for a while. I tried not to over mix, it is pastry, after all.

Ready for the chill step!

Mine made nearly twice as many as the recipe said it should, so it's possible that the dough was too thin. The recipe doesn't say how thin the dough should be, so I was just doing what looked good to me.

The filling looks very nice in these little pies!

I don't know what went wrong with these. The pastry cooked, and the pies taste great. But the sides don't want to stick together, and the bottoms, are very crumbly. Paul Hollywood always talks about how much he hates "soggy bottoms" in pastry, and he definitely doesn't need to worry about that with these. They're a great size though.

The pies made a huge mess and stuck to the muffin tin and I just didn't feel like cleaning it before making the second batch, so I just decided to throw it all in a pie dish and call it a day. So now I have an actual mincemeat pie, as well as the tarts. It all tastes really good, it just isn't very pretty. I might cut up the pie and freeze the slices to enjoy throughout the year and give some to my parents. I gave them a bag of goodies from the blog project at Christmas so they can enjoy what I've done so far.

I can see why mince pies are so popular in England at Christmas. I wish that tradition had made its way over here so I could have enjoyed eating these my whole life! I think I need some more practice with them, and I might just go with pre-made dough in the future, but I think mincemeat pie will be part of my Christmas tradition from here on out!