Lazy Mince Pie Stars

Want to bake some homemade mince pies without any of that flour rubbing and dough chilling nonsense that comes with making your own pastry? Then do I have the recipe for you! In fact it probably doesn't even count as a recipe, more of an assembly process. I stole the idea from supermodel-turned-cook (there's a phrase you don't hear very often) Lorraine Pascale - all you need is a pack of shop bought puff pastry (all butter is the best) and a jar of mincemeat. I already had both of these in the house and even managed to get these almost mince pies baked during naptime which shows just how easy they are!

Firstly roll out the puff pastry and cut into smallish squares. I used my cake decorating ruler to cut 10cm  squares because I'm weird like that, but you don't have to be that precise. Take each piece at a time and make a cut into each corner, but don't go all the way into the centre of the square. Drop a spoonful of mincemeat into the middle, then pick up one side of each corner cut and fold it into the middle of the square. Cut out a star from your pastry offcuts and press it into the middle of the pastry. Brush with egg wash and bake until the pastry is puffed and golden (it took about 12-15 minutes at 200C in my oven...). I don't think I explained that very well so here are some photos of the process that hopefully make more sense:

And there you go! The folded over points stuck back up as the pastry puffed on a few of mine, but a dusting of icing sugar hides a multitude of sins. One thing I would recommend is to bake these on a sheet of baking paper to make cleaning up easier. I'd forgotten how mincemeat sets like cement when it's been baked on to anything... Like any pastry these mince pie stars are best eaten while they're still warm, but will keep for a few days in an airtight container - perfect to make over the weekend ready for Christmas!

Savoury Snacks

Yes you read that correctly - savoury! Since starting the first version of this blog over 18 months ago I had yet to attempt a savoury bake. I'm usually too fixated on sugary sweet creations to pay any attention to the less glamourous pies and pasties, but we've just returned from a week in Cornwall and needed something to make our packed lunch for the drive down a little more interesting. As I've mentioned before, pastry has always been my baking achilles heel but I'm slowly overcoming my fear of it and wanted to make some classic picnic snacks - sausage rolls and cheese straws.

The sausage rolls were based on recipe from the always reliable Delia Smith, the only addition was some finely chopped onion mixed into the sausagemeat to give it a bit more flavour. I bought the sausagemeat from Sainsbury's, but you could also buy some nice sausages and take the meat out of the skins and it would do the same job. The pastry was surprisingly easy to make, grating the semi-frozen butter was a great way to get small pieces that can be rubbed into the flour without melting too much. Strictly speaking it's not a puff pastry, but it was much quicker than all that rolling and folding and rolling and folding... As always it's best not to overwork the pastry and when I was rolling it out you could clearly see long strips of butter - that's good because it means you'll get a nice flaky crust. I cut the sausage rolls quite small so they would be almost bite size, but they would also be tasty if they were made a little bigger as a more substantial snack.

I didn't use a recipe for the cheese straws, but they're so simple that you don't really need one. It's just the same pastry as the sausage rolls, but made cheesy with the addition of some grated cheddar. I rolled out the pastry, sprinkled it with the cheese, and then folded it and rolled again so that the cheese is trapped inside. Then cut into strips and lay on a baking tray - I twisted them slightly so they're more of a cheese twist than a cheese straw, but either way would work. As I was frantically trying to pack a week's worth of supplies for a six month old baby at the time I didn't have time to take proper photos, so I'm afraid you'll have to settle for an Instagram shot!

The general consensus was that these were absolutely delicious, but then anything you wrap in that much pastry tends to taste good really doesn't it?! The cheese did try to escape from the twists a bit, I'm not sure if I used too much cheese (is that even possible?) or if that's just what happens, but it didn't detract from the deliciousness. I'm definitely converted to the savoury side of baking now, and after a week of eating proper Cornish pasties I'm feeling inspired to attempt those in the near future - watch this space!

Treacle Tart

After watching this week's episode of The Great British Bake Off I really wanted to try my hand at the 'Technical Challenge' of Treacle Tart, except it's a recipe which contains my biggest baking nemesis - pastry. You see pastry and I have never got on well. I'm not sure if my butter is never cold enough, or my hands are too warm, or I'm just a bit too overenthusiastic with kneading the dough, but it just never seems to work. It's never flaky enough, always too chewy, but I was determined to get it right this time.

The recipe comes from Bake Off judge and all round baking queen Mary Berry, so you know it's reliable, and seemed easy enough - there are only six ingredients for a start. I even purchased a new loose bottomed flan tin for the occasion, because I wanted one with fluted edges and it was 70% off so it would be rude not to!

I decided to make the pastry using the food processor, partly because it's quicker than the traditional method of rubbing together butter and flour, and partly so if it all went wrong I could blame it on the machinery! Then it went into the fridge to 'rest' for 20 minutes before I rolled it out and lined the base of my shiny new flan tin. I debated over the best way to construct the lattice pattern for the top of my tart, the recipe states to roll out the pastry and egg wash it, then cut into strips and lay out the lattice once the filling is in the pastry case. But this leaves no room for error because once the pastry strips are on you can't take them off to readjust, so instead I copied a few of the Bake Off contestants and laid out the pattern on cling film first and then transferred it to the tart.

The filling consists of a bottle of Golden Syrup (yep that's right, a whole bottle!), white breadcrumbs and the juice and zest of a lemon. I love how simple it is, just heat the syrup and lemon, mix in the breadcrumbs and dump it all into the prepared tin. Then flip the pastry lattice on top, attempt to fix the edges where it's fallen apart during the flipping process, brush with a little egg wash and bake!

I'd never actually tried Treacle Tart before so don't really have anything to compare it to, but I was very impressed. The crumbly shortcrust pastry is a nice contrast to the gooey, sticky filling, and while my lattice won't win any beauty contests I was actually pretty pleased with it. The recipe said to use the juice and zest of two lemons, but I only had one and even that came through pretty strongly - two would definitely overpower the flavour of the golden syrup. Overall verdict? I wouldn't have got 'Star Baker', but don't think I would be bottom of the list either!