Stollen Topped Mince Pies & Clementine and Apple Mince Pies

What is Christmas without a mince pie or two? I thought I'd try out a couple of variations on the traditional mince pie this year.

First up are Stollen topped mince pies. The pastry is a lovely sweet shortcrust which you can either make using your favourite recipe or using shop bought pastry. The BBC has a good recipe for sweet shortcrust pastry here.

Each pastry case is filled with a couple of teaspoons of mincemeat...again if time allows you can make your own mincemeat in advance.

Each mince pie is then topped with a stollen mixture which interestingly has madeira cake in it, along with ground almonds, caster sugar, butter, an egg yolk, candied peel and marzipan.

I took a little ball of the stollen mixture and flattened it into a disc before placing on top and pushing it down into place which made it a little easier. Each mince pie was then finished off with some toasted flaked almonds before going into the oven. Once baked they were dusted with icing sugar. These are a great alternative to traditional mince pies and stollen is another festive favourite. They were light and tasty and the stollen stayed soft when baked.

My second mince pies are Clementine and Apple. The recipe is by Paul Hollywood and they were featured on the Great British Bake Off Christmas special earlier in the week.

You can find the recipe here, Paul used tangerines but any Christmassy orange will do. Again I used sweet shortcrust pastry and for the filling, mincemeat was mixed with clementine zest, diced apple and clementine flesh. Orange pastry might also work quite well with this recipe.

These mince pies are slightly larger as they were made in muffin tins and the cutter was 9cm. They have a lovely fruity taste and will fill your home with the aroma of Christmas.

If you fancy some more variations on mince pies which are less traditional check out these mince pie rings and spiced mincemeat fairy cakes that I made last year.

 

I'm entering my Stollen mince pies into this month's Alpha Bakes as the letter of the month is 'S'. Alpha Bakes is hosted by Ros at the More Than Occasional Baker and she is hosting for December. Her partner in crime and co-host is Caroline of Caroline Makes.

Ingredients

375g sweet shortcrust pastry or follow the recipe from BBC GoodFood
375g mincemeat
50g madeira cake
50g ground almonds
25g caster sugar
50g butter, softened
1 egg yolk
3 tbsp candied peel
100g marzipan, finely diced
25g toasted flaked almonds
Icing sugar for dusting.

Preheat the oven to 200c/180c fan/gas 6. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured board and then cut out 12 8cm rounds using a circle cutter. Re-roll the trimmings if necessary. Press the 8cm circles into the holes of a bun tin. I greased my bun tin beforehand to ensure the mince pies came out.

Put a couple of teaspoons of mincemeat to each pastry case. To create the stollen topping, you can use a food processor or I used a hand mixer which worked just as well. Blitz the madeira cake, ground almonds, caster sugar, egg yolk and butter until it is smooth. Tip into a bowl and then mix in the candied peel and diced marzipan. Divide this mix into 12 roughly even balls, then flatten each one into a disc which is roughly the size of the pastry case top. Place a disc on top of each mince pie and gently press down. Finish by sprinkling toasted flaked almonds over each one.

The mince pies should be baked for 20-25 minutes and should be lightly golden when down. Remove from the oven and dust with icing sugar, when they have cooled a little remove from the tin and place on a cooling wrack. You may want to dust again with icing when they're cold as I find if you do it when hot the icing sugar seems to disappear.

* Adapted from BBC GoodFood magazine

Festive Bread Baking



I don't really know a great deal about bread or how to make it...but I'd love to be one of those people who can knock up a quick homemade loaf as quick as a flash. So I thought I'd take some tentative steps towards becoming a bread baker by attending a 'Festive Bread Baking' course.

 

Our host was Anna, a.k.a the Culinary Anthropologist. Anna hosts courses from her gorgeous kitchen in north London, these range from bread to preserves to new Nordic cuisine. We were greeted with a very warm welcome along with tea and coffee, juice and some toasted breads for breakfast. Then it was time to get started as we had four breads to get through in a day.

First up was the festive favourite Panettone. Anna had started us off the day before with the base, from there we worked in teams of 4 to produce our breads. There were lots of delicious ingredients in the panettone including plump rum soaked raisins. There were 7 people on the course altogether and one team had a Kenwood stand mixer and one team had a Kitchen Aid to knead the dough, there was much debate as to which was the best but we didn't reach any firm conclusions. At home I have a Kenwood K-Mix so I'd come down on the side of Kenwood.

Once our panettone's were proved we slashed a cross in the top of each one before baking. Interestingly you can buy something called Aroma Panettone which adds the distintive smell to your bake! Anna recommended the Bakery Bits website for some specialist baking buys. They also sell various sizes of panettone cases. 

Our next bread was Stollen which contained crystallised ginger, sour cherries and more rum soaked raisins. We more specifically made a Dresden Stollen. When the dough is ready it is pressed out into an oval which is then folded over on itself but not quite in half. Once baked the whole thing is brushed with melted butter and then dusted with icing.

We used Anna's homemade candied peel in both the panettone and the stollen. I'd never really considered making candied peel before and it is rather time consuming but it was also very tasty, so it might be worth giving it a go. Here is the recipe for candied peel on Anna's website. Waitrose also describe a method on their website.

Next up, brioche. This is the bread that I have made before having made a plaited loaf as well as chocolate brioche rolls. Once our brioche dough was ready we shaped it into small traditional rolls called 'brioche a tete' as they look like they've got little heads. We also made loaves, one with three balls sitting together in the tin, as you can see below, and another with raisins and spices rolled up inside.

The brioche can then be used for a number of other recipes such as the rum babas above or some french toast perhaps.

Our final loaf was the Challah which is a special Jewish plaited loaf eaten on the Sabbath and for holidays. I've never heard of a Challah before but it really was quick to make and it was very light. This loaf was slightly sweet as it has honey in the recipe and overall it is a good multi-purpose loaf. Anna showed us how to plait and my loaf is the one on the left above. The Challah were finished with an egg wash and a sprinkling of either poppy seeds or sesame seeds.

Once all our doughs were made and proving it was time to sit down to lunch which was a tasty spread of winter coleslaw, pheasant rillette, gravadlax, bread, chutneys and cheese, all washed down with a glass of wine. Lunch was delicious and we even got pudding which was rum babas and brioche bread and butter pudding.

This was a great course and our host Anna certainly knew here stuff. Before we started baking we had a little introduction to the science of bread making, Anna also runs other bread courses which go into this in more detail. Her knowledge and enthusiasm for food were evident throughout the day and we came away with detailed recipes and instructions about how to make our bread at home. In addition there were recipes for the rum babas, bread and butter pudding and candied peel. The ingredients we used throughout the day were also top class, of particular note was the flour which was from Shipton Mill where you can buy it online by the sack.

Anna trained at the Tante Marie Cookery School in San Francisco and then took specialised courses at the San Francisco Baking Institute. She is also currently studying for an MA in the anthroplogy of food and consults for BBC Radio 4's 'The Kitchen Cabinet' so she certainly knows her onions! I'd highly recommend her courses and I've already signed up for a preserves course in the spring.

To end the day whilst we were waiting for our last loaves to bake we were treated to a glass of Glogg which is a Swedish mulled wine with a kick of vodka...it was the perfect way to end a great day!