Belated Mince Pies, or the Art of Living Christmasfully

What’s that you say? Christmas was over more than a month ago? We’re all slogging through January, the most ascetic and regretful month of the year, with still more than two months to go before the orgiastic chocolate-and-baking consolations of Easter? It’s freezing, miserable, and still practically snowless in Toronto, seasonal flu ravages the cityfolk, the first assignments of the semester are almost due, it’s fourteen below, and there’s very little to feel cheerful about? Perhaps, out there. But in here, the oven has been preheated, the wine is mulling things over in the crockpot, and Dickens, that most joyful of gourmandisers, has been pulled off the shelf:

"Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, suckling-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam.”
--A Christmas Carol (1843)

Still not seeing the ghost of (this) Christmas past? How about some whimsy from Dickens’s admirer and successor G.K. Chesterton, another dedicated bon vivant and fully paid-up member of the British Old Farts’ Society for the Drinking of Claret, Spouting of Witty Maxims and General Advancement of Bonhomie?

“Mince-Pies grant Wishes: let each name his Prize, 

But as for us, we wish for more Mince-Pies.”

Chesterton, incidentally, a man of great girth and wit, had this to say about Dickens, and the Scroogery with which we all occasionally contend:

“If some Radical contemporary and friend of Dickens had happened to say to him that in defending the mince-pies and the mummeries of Christmas he was defending a piece of barbaric and brutal ritualism, doomed to disappear in the light of reason along with the Boy-Bishop and the Lord of Misrule, I am not sure that Dickens (though he was one of the readiest and most rapid masters of reply in history) would have found it very easy upon his own principles to answer. It was by a great ancestral instinct that he defended Christmas; by that sacred sub-consciousness which is called tradition, which some have called a dead thing, but which is really a thing far more living than the intellect.”
--Criticisms and Appreciations of the Works of Charles Dickens (1911)

On that note, herein follows Nigella’s recipe for mince pies (and photos of my own attempts). These can be made at any time of the year you like, though really, why wouldn’t you make them now, when you most need cheering up? Thomas Walker, writing in 1881, knew of the beauties of seasonality, and the ways in which certain foods provide perfect remedies for particular seasonal tribulations; I defer to him for a suggestion on the wine pairing: “After dinner on Christmas Day we drank mulled claret—an excellent thing, and very suitable to the season.”
--Aristology, or the Art of Dining (1881)

Nigella’s Mince Pies
Ok, I confess. I used shop-bought mincemeat. But it was good quality stuff, and I see no need to get all obsessive about it. After all, Christmas baking is supposed to be fun, no? Even in January.

INGREDIENTS:
• 240g plain flour
• 60g vegetable shortening
• 60g cold butter
• juice of 1 orange
• pinch of salt
• approx. 350g mincemeat
• icing sugar for dusting

METHOD:
• Get out a tray of miniature tart tins, each indent 4.5cm in diameter, along with a 5.5cm fluted, round biscuit cutter and a 4cm star cutter. (Note: I couldn’t find these things, so I improvised with the tart tins I had and miniature cookie cutters—as long as the “lid” fits approximately across the diameter of the pie I don’t think it really matters.)
• Measure the flour into a shallow bowl or dish and, with a teaspoon, dollop little mounds of vegetable shortening into the bowl, add the butter, diced small, shake to cover it, then put in the freezer for 20 minutes. This is what will make the pastry so tender and flaky later.
• Mix together the orange juice and salt in a separate, small bowl, cover and leave in the fridge to chill.
• After the 20 minutes, empty the flour and fat into the bowl of your food processor and blitz until you’ve got a pale pile of porridge-like crumbs. Pour the salted juice down the funnel, pulsing until it looks as if the dough is about to cohere; you want to stop just before it does (even if some orange juice is left). If all your juice is used up and you need more liquid, add some iced water.
• If you prefer to use a freestanding mixer to make the pastry, cut the fats into the flour with the flat paddle, leaving the bowl in the fridge to chill down for the 20-minute flour-and-fat-freezer session. Add liquid as above. I often find the pastry uses more liquid in the mixer than the processor.
• Turn the mixture out of the processor or mixing bowl onto a pastry board or work surface and, using your hands, combine to a dough. Then form into 3 discs (you’ll need to make these in 3 batches, unless you’ve got enough tart tins to make all 36 pies at once).
• Wrap each disc in clingfilm and put in the fridge to rest for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 220°C/gas mark 7.
• Roll out the discs, one at a time, as thinly as you can without exaggerating; in other words, you want a light pastry case, but one sturdy enough to support the dense mincemeat. This is easy-going dough, so you don’t have to pander to it: just get rolling and patch up as you need.
• Out of each rolled-out disc cut out circles a little wider than the indentations in the tart tins; I use a fluted cookie cutter for this. Press these circles gently into the moulds and dollop in a scant teaspoon of mincemeat.
• Then cut out your stars with your little star cutter – re-rolling the pastry as necessary – and place the tops lightly on the mincemeat.
• Put in the oven and bake for 10–15 minutes: keep an eye on them as they really don’t take long and ovens do vary.
• Remove from the oven, prising out the little pies straight away and letting the empty tin cool down before you start putting in the pastry for the next batch. Carry on until they’re all done.
• Dust over some icing sugar by pushing it through a tea strainer.

MAKE AHEAD TIP: 
Make the mince pies up to 1 week ahead and leave to cool. Store in an airtight container layered up between sheets of greaseproof paper. Pop into a warm oven for 3–4 minutes before serving, dusted with icing sugar. 

FREEZE AHEAD TIP:
 Make and pack the pies as above and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight on a cooling rack and reheat as above.

The recipe is courtesy of Nigella Lawson’s Nigella Christmas, published by Chatto and Windus and available through http://www.nigella.com.

Mince Pies