Traditional Irish Mince Pies Recipe

Bold Bakers, today we are making traditional mince pies, one of my favorite treats for the holiday season. It's really simple. We're going to make our own minced meat. Just a little note, there's no meat involved at all. In a nice large bowl, we're going to add in a variety of fruit. Here I have some raisins, currants, which are small raisins, I just learned, thanks to Google. And sultanas. Fun fact, I also learned just recently that sultanas are actually golden raisins, which I never knew. In America, they call them golden raisins, in Ireland we call them sultanas. And they're treated a little bit differently, but basically, it's a raisin. Okie dokie, candied mixed peel. Now we use this a lot in baking in Ireland for our holiday recipes, it is citrus that has been boiled in sugar and stuff like that. It can be hard to come by sometimes, and it's expensive too. If you want to make your own, you can do that, and I've got a recipe on BiggerBolderBaking.com. It's really easy to make your own, it lasts forever, it's just handy. Next I'm going to add in a baking apple. I use Granny Smith apples here in the United States, in Ireland I would use a Brambley apple. And whatever you use for cooking in your country is totally fine. What my mom always did, is just grate it in rather than chop it, because it kind of disappears into the minced meat, you don't need to have chunks, so just grate it on in there, it's way easier. That is one thing I've learned after 40 years of being on this earth, is that my mommy's always right. Now next we're going to add in our citrus, I have a lemon here, I'm going to zest it, and I'm going to get that juice also. So if you've seen my recent videos, I showed you how to make a traditional Irish pudding for Christmas, and a traditional Christmas cake, and let me tell you a little secret about these recipes, it's all the same ingredients. It's fruit, and brown sugar, and spices, and booze. You know, like, you can't go wrong, but we make them into so many different desserts for the holiday season, and this is just another variation of that. Okay, and then of course, a little bit of lemon. We love citrus in our baking in Ireland, and these juices just help to kind of brighten the flavor of the minced meat, and make it nice and kind of, like, fresh almost. And this is just a little tip for everybody out there, when you're reading recipes, make sure you check if you need the zest, and the juice, because maybe you're smarter than 20-something year old Gemma, but I used to do the juice, and then I realized later I needed the zest, and then I had to go back and zest, like, juiced lemons or oranges, and you know, that wasn't the smartest move, but you're smarter than that. So that's all our fruit, now let's add in the rest of our ingredients. Here I have some sugar, now this is muscovado sugar, which we use a lot at home in Ireland in our traditional recipes. Muscovado sugar is an unrefined sugar, and it has originally a lot of molasses in it, and they treat it to take out some of that molasses, but as you can see, it's very fine granules, it's sticky, it has, like, it smells like caramel, it smells like molasses, it has really good flavor. Now if you can't find that in your country, you can always replace it with dark brown sugar. And just so you know, on my website, I just released an article about all the different types of brown sugar, because around the holiday season, it can get really confusing between demerara, turbinado, muscovado, what do you use? So I explained it all in that article, so definitely check that out. Okay, next are spices, here I have some cinnamon, lovely. And here I have some mixed spice, again, another common ingredient in our holiday baking in Ireland. You can actually make this yourself, and I have a recipe on my website, it's just a mix of nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, the usual suspects. It is very similar to pumpkin pie spice, so it can be substituted if that's what you have. Okay, lovely. A little bit of butter, in we go, just like that. Okay, the star of the show here is whiskey, I'm using O'Driscoll's whiskey, and I'm very proud to say that this is my family's whiskey, founded by my cousin Michael Stafford in Wexford, Ireland, where I grew up. He carried on the business from our grandfather, James Stafford, which my father and Michael's father, George and Michael, carried on the business also, so it's still in the family. I'm very, very proud and happy to be a brand ambassador and to use this. O'Driscoll's is triple distilled and aged in bourbon casks for a minimum of three years, giving the signature smoothness of Irish whiskey. So this whiskey is a tribute to our ancestors who were pirates and smugglers from West Cork who patrolled the wild Atlantic coast. For more information about the O'Driscoll's and where you can order this internationally, go to O'Driscoll'sirishwhiskey.com. So now we have everything in our bowl, go in with your spatula, a festive one if you have it, and mix all these ingredients together. Now the reason that we add the whiskey in there is because it preserves this mix. Usually in my house, and many houses around Ireland, you would make your mincemeat in October or so, and with all of that sugar and the citrus and the alcohol in there, it would actually preserve it for months, like up to a year. And during this time it would develop even more flavor, so the sooner you make this, the better. Just give it a good mix and get all those raisins and fruit soaking. Now on with our cling wrap, cover it up nice and tight, and here's what we're going to do. We are going to let this soak at room temperature for a minimum of 12 hours, but you can go overnight, any longer than that, then please put it in the fridge. And during that time, it's going to develop lots of flavor, all the raisins are going to hydrate and plump up, and it's going to be absolutely delicious. After 12 hours, your mincemeat will look like this. Your fruit has hydrated, it's nice and plump, and the liquid has soaked up. Now follow me over to the stovetop, and we're going to cook it. In a medium-heavy bottom saucepan, add in all your mincemeat. And we're just going to cook this for around 10-15 minutes over a medium-low heat, let it come to a simmer, let the butter melt, but let it kind of form a syrup. Don't cook it too far, where all the liquid evaporates, we want to keep a good bit of that liquid there because it's going to form the sauce and give us juicy mince pies. Over the few minutes, you'll see that the liquid starts to form a bit of a syrupy sauce, and this is what we want. So now that we have our mincemeat, let's talk pastry. I have a lot of different pastries on my website, the one I like to use for this is my trusty old pie crust. Now you want to double the recipe to make sure you get lots of pies. You can use my buttermilk pastry, my sour cream pastry, I have lots of different pastries on there, whatever you like. I'm going to flour my surface, and just roll out your pastry. For mince pies in Ireland, I'm definitely used to kind of a thicker pastry, so I like to just go a little bit thicker on this one. So here I have a 3-1⁄2-inch cutter, and I'm just going to cut out my rounds. As you can see, that pastry is nice and thick. And then just straight into your cupcake pan. And just a reminder, make sure you butter your cupcake pan. Okay, keep going and cut out as many circles as you can. I'm just making 12, but you can make as many as you want, because the mincemeat makes loads of pies. Now, with your leftover scraps, we're going to re-roll them, and we're going to cut out the pastry for the top of our pies. So for the tops, you can just use a round cutter, smaller than the bottom, and then just cut a few of those out, and we can just have regular, just traditional looking pies. Lovely. You can get super festive, and get little cutters, stars, and Christmas trees, and gingerbread men, and cut out a few of these, and we can put these on top, just to mix it up a little bit. So when I was young, I'd say around like 8 or 9, I used to make mince pies for my family, and I would sell them for 2, which must have been pounds at that stage, pounds, £2, for 12 mince pies. I made, you know, £2, and however much money I made, my mom used to go mad because I spent a fortune on ingredients, because I made all my pastry from scratch, I used her good Irish butter, and I also made my mincemeat, so they cost a fortune, but I used to sell them to family for $2. I thought it was genius, because I wasn't paying for it. Okay so that's all the pastry we need, let's fill up our pies. So my mincemeat is cooled, and I just want to show you, see the way it's still nice and kind of juicy? Once it goes cold, this is what it should look like. And that will give us just really lovely mince pies. I don't want you to be scabby here, I want you to fill up these wells with your mincemeat. Nice big spoonfuls. Once you've added your mincemeat, brush the edge of the pastry with egg wash. Egg wash is really important because it helps the top cap stick onto the bottom. Now just go on with your hats, seal them with a fork, pushing together the bottom and the top, and then egg wash the top. Then for the other little decorations, you can just place them straight on like this. You can even layer a few on top of each other. Just continue decorating your pies any way you like. Ah, I have to say, I am just thrilled with how they turned out, they're so cute! Okay, no more talking, let's get them into the oven. Bake your mince pies at 400F, 200C for roughly 15-20 minutes until they're lovely golden brown and bubbling. Our mince pies are done and they look and smell fantastic! The air is filled with buttery pastry and lovely boozy fruit. You do not have to be Irish to enjoy these little pies, they are for everybody. And I guarantee you, once you taste them, you're going to love them. In my house, we dust them with a little bit of powdered sugar that looks like snow, and then we put a big dollop of softly whipped cream on top. And while they're nice and warm, just dig in and watch that buttery pastry just crumble. So I'm not the only one who loves mince pies in this house. I wait all year for this. So what do you love about mince pies, being a non-Irish person? They are buttery, fruity, and boozy. Three of my favorite things. Gemma, I could eat 30 of these. I think I have. They're luxurious, aren't they? With that rich mince pie filling, the sugar, the spices, like Kevin said, the booze in there, it's just like a luxury pie. They are for yourself, but you can also share them as well, right? They make good gifts. If you liked this very traditional Irish recipe, then stick around and check out my Irish pudding recipe and also my Auntie Rosie's Christmas cake, straight from Ireland, and I'll see you back here again really soon. Give them a go. So good.