Baking Mince Pies For The First Time

I have a confession to make, until this week, I’d never looked at a recipe let alone thought to bake mince pies. Do you know why? I was under the impression that they were really difficult to bake. Well, I was proven wrong!

A couple of weeks ago my Grandma and I baked a Christmas cake together which was really fun and I enjoyed learning how she makes them every year even if I don’t eat them, the kitchen smelt amazing whilst it was baking in the oven thanks to all of the fruit and brandy. We both enjoyed it so much that we thought we could meet again to bake mince pies. I haven’t baked anything with pastry since school so I was glad to have my Grandma to bake with to refresh my memory. If I hadn’t had my Grandma at hand to help then I definitely would have needed to learn a thing or two at the Delhi Baker’s Club.

I’ve only really liked mince pies for the past few years and it may or may not be the fact that I used to think they contained mince meat, haha maybe I shouldn’t be admitting that! Even though I’ve enjoyed eating my Grandma’s mince pies for the last couple of years I’ve never thought to make them myself because I falsely believed they took hours and hours to bake.

Well I can confirm that within a couple of hours we’d baked at least 36 mince pies and they really weren’t that challenging. I’m so pleased with how they’ve turned out and I must say they taste pretty good too. Now that I’ve baked them once I’ll definitely bake them again next year and maybe I’ll make some jam tarts or something in the mean time too.

My Grandma bakes the most amazing cakes, pies and desserts and growing up she’d always pop round with a tin of sweet treats for us. Her chocolate slab cake is my favourite ever! She has been the person in my life to inspire me to bake so I’m pretty grateful that I got to learn from one of the best (in my opinion) mince pie bakers. I can’t wait to have our next baking session now. It’s lovely to learn my Grandma’s techniques and spend quality time together. She’s also really good at sharing her knowledge with me without being patronising which makes baking together really enjoyable and relaxing. It is times like this that I realise how lucky I am to have such a loving and caring family.

Anyway what I was trying to get at with this post is if baking mince pies had crossed your mind and you’d been put off by the thought that they’d be really complicated to make, I say you should give them a go! They really aren’t as hard as you may think.

Have you baked anything Christmassy recently?
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