How to make mince pies at home

While homemade mince pies might sound like hard work, you can easily cut corners with a few smart tricks – and the incredible flavour and smell makes it completely worth the effort.

“Homemade mince pies are way tastier,” says time-saving expert and cook Suzanne Mulholland, also known as The Batch Lady.

“The pastry goes really lovely and crunchy, and you get that lovely smell wafting through your house. You can also batch cook them in advance and put them in the freezer.”

Making them yourself also gives you the freedom to pick the size you want.

“I love making small bite-sized ones using a canapé tray,” says Mulholland.

She highlights that there are a lot of easy hacks and shortcuts that help speed up the process. For example, forget making shortcut pastry from scratch.

“You can use shop-bought pastry which is so easy to work with and gives you perfect-looking mince pies,” suggests Mulholland.

“In addition, you can also buy good-quality mincemeat if you don’t want to make it yourself. Many supermarkets brands do great mincemeat, and you can get some fun flavours these days.”

She encourages cooks to experiment with flavours to make their mince pies extra special.

“You could add some extra chopped apple, orange zest or cranberries to your mincemeat,” suggests Mulholland. “We’ve occasionally even put some chocolate chips into ours.”

Most importantly, don’t make the rookie error of overfilling the precious mince pies.

“Don’t overfill with mincemeat or it will bubble up and burn,” warns Mulholland. “Aim for the pastry case to be two-thirds of the way full.”

If you are already counting down to Christmas and craving mince pies, here’s how to make them from scratch…

The Batch Lady’s mince pie recipe

Ingredients:

(Prep: 15 minutes, serves 12)

400g mixed dried fruit
75g mixed peel
Zest and juice of 1 orange
75g vegetarian suet
1 small cooking apple, peeled and finely diced
1tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp mixed spice
¼tsp ground nutmeg
1 cup (200g) soft dark brown sugar
Generous ⅓ cup (100ml) brandy
2 sheets of pre-rolled shortcrust pastry
Icing sugar, for dusting

Method (if making ahead for the fridge or freezer)

1. For the mincemeat add all the mixed dried fruit, mixed peel, zest and juice of the orange, vegetarian suet, peeled and finely diced apple, cinnamon, mixed spice, ground nutmeg and soft dark brown sugar into a large saucepan cook over a medium heat for 10–15 minutes until all of the sugar has dissolved.

2. Remove from the heat and stir through the brandy.

3. Preheat the oven to 185°C/165°C fan or air fryer to 175°C.

4. Unroll the pastry sheets, keeping them on their baking parchment wrapping. Use a 7.5cm pastry cutter to cut out 12 discs of pastry and push them into a shallow 12-hole cupcake tin. Use a medium-sized star-shaped cutter to cut out 12 stars to top the mince pies.

5. Place 1 heaped teaspoon of mincemeat in each pastry case. Do not overfill, as they will bubble over in the oven. Lay a star of pastry on top of each pie.

6. To cook in an oven: Bake in the oven for 13–15 minutes, keeping a close eye on them, as they can catch pretty quickly. Remove as soon as they are golden brown.

To cook in air fryer: Cook for 10–12 minutes, keeping a close eye on them, as they can catch pretty quickly. Remove as soon as they are golden brown.

7. Leave to cool, then carefully add to a large labelled freezer bag. Freeze flat.

If cooking now:

Follow the method in the ‘making ahead’ section up until the end of step 6. Dust with a little icing sugar and enjoy warm with some cream.

The Batch Lady Saves Christmas by Suzanne Mulholland is published in hardback by Ebury Press, priced £25. Photography by Andrew Hayes-Watkins. Available now.