Christmas Roundup! I've had a lot of fun over Christmas this year. I'm not religious at all, but I do love all the secular aspects of the holiday season, all the ritual and tradition: the food, the gifts, the food, the decorations, the food, the time off work, the food, spending time with family and friends... and the food! (That was shamelessly quoted from the latest episode of Miranda!)

Of course, I'll still be doing my Unblogged Files for December (I'm pretty proud of myself for keeping that up the whole year, by the way!), as well as a "2012 in Review"-type post, summarising my blog this year... but to try and keep December's Unblogged Files to a reasonable length (and because I clearly love round-up posts!) I've decided to do a little Christmas round-up post too!

The Christmas season started with a party at a friends' house, to which I brought my mince pies. I loved the spread of baked goods - super cute!

Christmas Spread

I did get teased for requesting a cup of tea at 10pm on a Saturday night - how very Miranda of me! - but you just can't have mince pies and shortbread without tea!

That evening we were also treated to a fabulous Christmas pudding made by a friend's aunt. It was flambéed and served with a crème anglaise, made by another friend who is a professional trained chef. (Obviously this is where we got the idea to serve our own pudding with vanilla crème anglaise!)

Pretty flames!

Pudding with custard

As you know, my Christmas Cake this year was Nigel Slater's Christmas Cake. That's another thing I love about Christmas: dried fruit and spices galore!

Nigel Slater's Christmas Cake

We had a fab picnic in the Botanic Gardens - it was perfect weather too! (Yay for a Southern Hemisphere Christmas!)

Botanic Gardens

We had a great afternoon, drinking rosé, eating picnicky food (cheese, dips, salami etc.) and generally soaking up the atmosphere. Love!

Spread

Milk chocolate and salted peanut blondies

Mmm... gooey...

One piece

And of course, there was our big Turkey dinner, held on Christmas Eve at my parents' place.

Christmas Dinner

I also wanted to show you some of the cool foodie gifts I got! These cute and pretty ceramic pieces from Kikki K's new home range (I love the little bowl so much - it really makes me smile!), these fab "Delicup Lunch" containers from my brother in Japan, and The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook!

Gifts

I bought this cute Hario Mini-Mill Slim Plastic Coffee Grinder from Sensory Lab for Sandra, as well as a bag of Chompy beans. The guys at Sensory Lab were so nice and helpful when I went to buy it - despite being busy, they gave me loads of time and advice, and even ground up a few samples of coffee for me to take home, so that I could see what the different grinds are supposed to look like for different brewing methods. How nice is that? Thanks guys!!

Coffee Grinder

Christmas also means Christmas leftovers. Breakfast on Christmas day was leftover Christmas pudding, fried in butter (eep!) and served with a little quenelle of creme fraiche.

Leftover Christmas Pudding

I also used the leftover Christmas pudding to make Christmas Puddini Bonbons again. I've been whipping them out whenever people pop in. (As well as some fancy German Christmas biscuits that my Dad bought us, and some coconut rough that I got at the newly opened Yarra Valley Chocolaterie).

Sweetmeats

I made a couple of fun things with the leftover turkey, including the Best Sandwich Ever! White bread, turkey, crispy bacon, lettuce, avocado, tomato and cranberry.

T-BLAT Sandwich

And because sometimes even I can get tired of Christmas food: I made Fuchsia Dunlop's claybowl chicken, using leftover turkey. Essentially it's just cold cooked turkey, dressed in a mixture of sesame paste, soy sauce, black vinegar, sesame oil and loads of chilli oil, tossed with crunchy roasted peanuts and sesame seeds and topped with pungent coriander and spring onions. Spicy, low-carb and punchily flavourful - it's the antithesis of Christmas food, and totally delicious.

Claybowl Turkey

Last night, we had a lobster dinner at our place - I do hope this becomes a yearly tradition! Essentially it was a rehash of last year's lobster dinner, but I improved on the lobster salad recipe (blogpost and recipe to come), and I baked my own challah for the bun. (Yes, for realsies!)

Lobster Salad in Challah (And yes I do realise how wrong that sounds!)

And finally, today we had a little latke party at my friend Jess' house.  I know we were a bit late for Hanukkah, but there's never a bad time for latkes!

Potato latkes with applesauce and creme fraiche

Jess made fab potato latkes, and we had a go making apple latkes too. I'll blog them in more detail soon - you all need fried potato pancakes in your life! Jess does her latkes very simply: just potatoes, flour and egg. So delicious! Just quietly, I like them better than Nigella's latkes from How to Eat!

Hope you all had a great festive season and enjoyed some good food and quality time with those nearest and dearest!! What are your favourite things to do over the break?

Pudding!

Christmas Dinner

As you can see, the menu I chose was similar to last year's Christmas Dinner, with just a few little changes. I love, love love Gordon Ramsay's turkey and gravy - pure juicy deliciousness and no need for any brining or other difficult tricks. The potatoes were Jamie Oliver's perfect roast potatoes, roasted in butter (zomg!), with sage, rosemary and garlic for extra flavour. They're crispy, chewy, fluffy and gorgeous!

The other sides were our usual red cabbage, some crisp roast kale (great for texture contrast and extra vitamins), roast carrots (just roasted in some olive oil with a little salt and pepper) and some roast butternut squash with sage and pine nuts. Woah!

Normally with my Christmas dinner posts, I just provide links to the original recipes and tell y'all the different little adaptations I made - but you know what? This means when Christmas rolls around it takes me forever to marry up all the changes to try and figure out what I did the year before. So this year I'm publishing my adapted recipes right here, as well as my original ones. (The adapted recipes are all already online anyway, sources are clearly stated, recipes are rewritten in my own words and with my adaptations etc etc etc.)

Next year I'll just be able to bring up this post and start cooking! Future Sarah: you're welcome.

The whole dinner wasn't that difficult: Sandra and I did the shopping a couple of days before, my dad picked up the turkey on the day, and we started cooking around 2pm with dinner starting at 7pm. (Please note we weren't cooking for the entire five hours; in fact, most of that time was spent on the couch watching Nigella's Christmas Kitchen while waiting for things to roast in the oven!) Like most people, we only have one oven, so we roasted things one after the other: turkey first, with the butternut squash underneath, then potatoes and carrots, and finally the kale. This meant that the butternut squash wasn't piping hot, but it was all delicious, and hot gravy solves everything! (I've found that roast turkey stays hot for a good few hours, loosely tented in foil, and it needs to rest for at least an hour anyway - so don't stress!)

Yay for Nigella marathons

At this point in the post, I feel it's time for a little drink! Sandra made an awesome Christmas cocktail, inspired by the "Pig" cocktail at Spice Temple: Prosecco, gin and lychee syrup, lychees and soda water. Cheers!

Cocktails!

The Turkey

Bacon Blanket!

Mmm... roasted turkey

The Turkey
(Adapted from Gordon Ramsay's Roast Turkey with Lemon, Parsley and Garlic Butter)

Preheat the oven to 200C.
Stir together 125 grams soft butter, 2 minced cloves of garlic, the zest of one lemon (keep the lemon for the cavity), a small handful chopped parsley and some salt and pepper. Loosen the skin under the turkey, and spread the flavoured butter under the skin. Spread any extra butter on the outside of the skin, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Place 2 peeled and halved onions, the zested lemon, and a few garlic cloves in the cavity. 
Roast the turkey, breast side up, for 15 minutes.
Turn the oven down to 180C. Cover the breast with 4 slices streaky bacon, and roast the turkey for 30 minutes a kilo, or until cooked. (Test by piercing the thickest part of the thigh - the juices should be clear, not pink).
Place the turkey on a platter, remove the bacon blanket and all the flavourings from the cavity (keep it all for the gravy!). Tent loosely with foil and allow to rest for at least an hour.

So much flavour...

The Gravy
(Adapted from Gordon Ramsay's Turkey Gravy)

Pour as much fat out of the roasting tray as possible. Add the bacon and flavourings from the turkey cavity to the tray, with 2 chopped tomatoes and a sprig of rosemary. Cook on a medium heat for a few minutes, stirring to get all the sticky deliciousness off the tray. Pour in a bottle of dry white wine, and allow to simmer strongly until reduced by half. Pour in 600 millilitres of chicken stock, bring to the boil and simmer strongly for about 10 minutes. Strain the gravy and discard all the extra bits. Thicken with a mixture of flour and milk, if desired. Serve HOT.

Roast Butternut Squash with Pine Nuts and Sage
An Original recipe by Sarah Cooks

Wash one butternut squash. Trim the top and bottom, cut in half lengthways and scoop out the seeds. (No need to peel). Toss with olive oil. Place in a baking dish, and roast at 180C for 20-30 minutes. Add a few sage leaves to the tray and allow to cook for another 20-30 minutes, until the sage is fragrant and the squash is softened and nicely browned in parts. Sprinkle over toasted pine nuts to serve.

Butter-Roasted Potatoes
(Adapted from Jamie Oliver's "Perfect Roast Potatoes: Flavour Combo 2")

Peel 2 kilos of roasting potatoes, cut into medium chunks and rinse off the starch. Place the potatoes into a large pot of cold water and add a generous spoonful of salt. Bring to the boil and allow to boil for 10 minutes. Drain the potatoes and allow them to steam dry. (This can all be done in advance). 
Place 100 grams of butter and a drizzle of olive oil in a large roasting tray, and place in the oven so the butter can melt and the tray heats up. (I just put this under the turkey for the last 10 minutes of its cooking time). Carefully place the parboiled potatoes in the tray and toss to coat in the melted butter. Roast at 200C for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix together the leaves from 2 sprigs of rosemary, a small handful of sage leaves, 3-5 unpeeled garlic cloves, a drizzle of red wine vinegar and olive oil. 
Take the potatoes out of the oven and squish them down flat with a potato masher (for extra crispness). Pour over the herbs and garlic, and place back in the oven for another 30-45 minutes or until really crispy and delicious. Season generously with salt to serve.

Crispy Roast Kale
(Sarah's version of a classic recipe)
Remove the tough stems from one bunch of kale. Rip the leaves into smallish pieces, wash under running water and dry thoroughly using a salad spinner. Place the leaves in a large baking dish in a shallow layer, pour over a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, and toss with your hands to coat. Roast at 200C for 20-30 minutes, until it smells cooked (you'll understand what I mean when you cook this yourself), and the leaves are mostly crisp. Season generously with salt.

Christmas Dinner

So much food! So tasty! So good!

The pudding was barely any work at all: I made two last year and kept one in the freezer the whole year! Easy. (It was Nigella's Ultimate Christmas Pudding, recipe available on her website. I'm not publishing the recipe here because I didn't make any changes - it's perfect just as it is!) It takes three hours to steam, so I put it on as we started dinner, and kept topping it up with boiling water every now and then. I also made a vanilla bean crème anglaise to accompany it, which only takes about 15 minutes. (It's best if you make it at the last minute, but I thought this was a good excuse to get up and move around a bit between dinner and dessert!)

We flambéed it with Bacardi 151, which is actually over-proof, with an alcohol content of 75%! Eep! It's highly flammable: don't try this at home kids! (Or at least keep a fire blanket close by!)

Fire, fire!

And once the pretty flames subsided, it was time to eat!

Nigella's Ultimate Christmas Pudding

One year in the freezer and still good! So moist and wonderful - this pudding is fantastic, you must try it! I think I went a bit OTT with the vanilla bean (1 massive vanilla bean to 300 ml cream, 3 teaspoons caster sugar and 3 egg yolks) - but hey, it's Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Nigel Slater's Christmas cake, Pyengana Cheddar

It's the Friday night before Christmas, and I've taken Monday off work, so it's going to be a five-day weekend for me. Woohoo! It's been a hectic few weeks, but I finally have some time for a little rest! We're having our big festive family feast on Christmas Eve, and we already did all the shopping tonight after work. Gifts are (finally) all organised too! So for now all I need to do is curl up on the couch with a thick slice of Christmas cake and a mug of tea. Bliss!

For this year's Christmas cake, I decided to return to an old favourite: Nigel Slater's Christmas Cake. The recipe appears in his books: Appetite, (where it's simply, and aptly, titled: "A Big Fruit Cake"), and also in The Kitchen Diaries. Luckily for those of you who don't have these books, it's also available online - Nigel has posted the Christmas Cake recipe in his Guardian column.

The last time I made it was three years ago (see Christmas Cake post here) and it was definitely due for a repeat! (Just quietly, I like Nigel's Christmas Cake much better than Nigella's Classic Christmas Cake. Although having said that, I remember really liking her Chocolate Fruit Cake - so perhaps I'll give that a go again next year).

But, back to Nigel's cake: I baked it at the start of the month, and let it mature for twenty torturous days, only digging into it this week! Please, a round of applause at my amazing self-restraint. (Well, I did have a little sneak preview, but I'll tell you about that below).

Ingredients

I chose Calvados for my "feeding brandy" of choice - I got the idea from the lovely Gemma at Dressing for Dinner, and thought it sounded amazing. I still have the expensive bottle of Calvados I bought almost seven years ago for my Sarah Discovers How to Eat project - it's been with me through five jobs and three houses, and you know what? It was time to stop saving it and start enjoying it!

That's not to say that I'd be pouring the Calvados willy nilly - this is definitely a cake worthy of a $70 bottle of booze! I love the buff, cappuccino-coloured batter...

Obligatory whisk shot

I also really like the pleasing graininess of the different dried fruits. I found a packet of "fruit salad" dried fruits at the supermarket, which contained pretty much the perfect amounts of dried apples, pears, peaches, apricots and prunes, and were of an impressive quality. I just needed to add some dried figs and glacé cherries.

"Fruit Salad" mixed dried fruits

There are, of course, sultanas, raisins, currants and dried cranberries!

Cranberries, raisins, sultanas, currants

The whole cake is pretty easy to make - in fact, the hardest thing about it is chopping up all the sticky dried fruits. But it's worth it - look how pretty they all are - like gleaming jewels!

Christmas cake batter

Cake, pre-baking

I bought a deep 20-cm tin years ago, but have no idea where I put it, so I ended up using a normal 20cm springform tin and had quite a bit of batter leftover. I baked the remainder in mini-foil muffin tins. Cute, right?

Mini Christmas Cakes

This also meant that - muahaha! - I got to eat one on the same day it was baked! Christmas cake always smells so good baking, and it's so hard not digging in straight away! Of course, they taste better after having matured, but that freshly-baked aroma is just too tantalising to resist...

Mini Christmas cake on day of baking

Shall we have a look at the large cake, after its maturation time?

Christmas cake

I'm know there's a school of thought that prefers cute little mini-Christmas cakes, especially all tied up in pretty ribbons to be given as gifts. (And if there's a time to indulge your love of twee and dainty crafts, surely Christmas is it). However, I actually love the glorious, hefty stodginess of one large cake - especially when it's undecorated. It's so uncompromisingly old-fashioned and plain - no need for bells and whistles, white icing or the like. It practically cries out: "I am fruitcake, love me".

Christmas cake

Honestly, I know that one full-sized fruitcake is far too much for one household to eat over the Christmas period. Rather than trying to scale it down, however, I love the idea of gifting people generous wedges of the cake, wrapped up rustically in waxed paper and tied with kitchen string.

Christmas cake

As you've seen, I've been eating this cake with a sharp cheddar on the side. I fell in love with the sharp-cheese-sweet-spiced-pastry combo back when I made Heston Blumenthal's Eccles Cake with Potted Stilton. At the time, my friend Kate suggested Christmas cake with a sharp cheese as an alternative, and ever since then I've been looking forward to trying this out. (And if you think about it, it's not too different from having dried fruit on a cheeseboard.) Such a fabulous combination! I felt it was a rather grown-up, chic way of serving the cake. (If "chic" is really a word you can apply to fat wodges of British fruit cake and crumbly cheese!)

If you love fruit cake like me, then this truly is the one to try.

I am super, duper excited for Christmas!! Speaking of excitement, I was pretty chuffed when Nigel himself responded to one of my early tweets about the Christmas cake. Fangirl freakout!


I hope Nigel's right! I'm really looking forward to Christmas! I hope you all have a great little break!

So, for the first time in three years, I made mince pies. And I went all out! Long, detailed mince-pie related post coming up right now. Get yourself a cuppa (and preferably a mince pie too!), sit back, relax and enjoy.

Mince pies

My love of mince pies knows no bounds - I love baking them, but even on years when I choose not to bake, I go a little crazy when they start appearing in bakeries and stores. (Remember my frantic search through different Coles to find Heston Blumenthal's new range?) My favourite type are the ones with thick, crumbly shortbread pastry. Super sweet, excessive and rich, yes, but it's Christmas! Live a little!

Mince pies, Adventskranz in the background

To demonstrate my love of the mince pie, here are all the mince pie-related posts I've ever done:

• Star-Topped Mince Pies (2005) - Shortcrust pastry, storebought mince with extra rum and fruit 
• Frangipane Mince Pies (2005) - Almond pastry, storebought mince with extra rum and fruit, topped with frangipane (Including a 20-cm sliceable pie)
• Frangipane Mince Pies (2008) - Almond pastry, storebought mince with extra rum and fruit, topped with frangipane 
• Classic Mince Pies (2009) - Rich shortcrust, Nigella's suet-free mince from How to be a Domestic Goddess 
• Eccles Cakes (2012) - not strictly a mince pie but very Christmassy nonetheless

Despite all the previous posts, I've never published a full recipe for mince pies on this blog (or my Sarah Discovers How to Eat blog, for that matter), seeing as I've usually just followed recipes to the letter - I usually just point y'all in the direction of the original recipe and give you my thoughts on how they turned out. This year, however, I feel like I made enough significant changes to make these my own. Crucially, I loved these so much that I want to be able to make them exactly the same way next year, and not have to flick through four different books, and compare them to my own notes to figure out what I did.

So, let's talk about the structure of these mince pies!

I made a delicate vanilla-bean shortbread pastry (AKA pâte sablée), filled it with an apple-rhubarb-vanilla mincemeat (adapted from Feast), and topped it with frangipane (AKA almond cream). I baked them in mini-muffin tins, ensuring a high ratio of crumbly pastry-to-filling. Super love! For fun, I did a few variations, which I'll talk about in more depth, but the full recipe given below is for the frangipane-topped, apple-rhubarb-vanilla mincemeat-filled mince pies. Phew!

This is a very long, involved recipe, but you can definitely stagger the preparation over many days, just assembling and baking them on the day you want to eat them. I make no apologies for the length of the recipe though - if you want a light and crumbly, perfect mince pie with little effort and time, just go out and buy them! There are loads of great ones out there. Besides, baking is fun!


Apple & Rhubarb Vanilla Mincemeat

I was searching for a mincemeat recipe that used real suet in it, but the only one I could find in my books was Nigella's quincemeat (HTBADG). Seeing as quinces aren't available right now, there went my dream of a suet-filled mince pie. Perhaps next year. (Does anyone have a good recipe?) Back in 2009, I tried Nigella's suet-free mincemeat, but don't remember being blown away by it. So I thought it was time to try a brand new one, and flicking through my books I decided on the rhubarb vanilla mincemeat from Feast. I love rhubarb, and I have heaps of lovely moist vanilla beans in my fridge. Perfect!

Ingredients for the mincemeat

I halved Nigella's recipe (a kilo of rhubarb and 660 grams of dried fruit - woah!) My bunch of rhubarb, once trimmed and sliced, only weighed 400 grams, so I made up the remaining 100 grams with some apples. In the recipe below, I've stated that you can use any ratio of apple-to-rhubarb as you like, seeing as they both provide the same, pectiny, function.

It's very easy to make - essentially you toss all the ingredients into a pan...

Fruit mince, beginning of cooking time

...and simmer over a low heat for about half an hour until the whole mixture is fragrant and the rhubarb has melted into a softly sticky, delicious paste binding the dried fruit together. Heavenly!

Cooked fruit mince

My scaled-down recipe still makes twice as much mincemeat as you'll need for the 42 mini-mince pies below, but it didn't seem worth it to make the mince in even smaller quantities, especially as you can't buy rhubarb in 250 gram quantities. Either keep the remainder in a sterilized jar, or double the amount of pastry and go crazy!


Vanilla-Bean Shortbread Pastry

Pâte Sablée

So, pâte sablée is easy to make, but very difficult to roll out as it is so light and delicate. I used a Roux Brothers' recipe, adding the seeds of a vanilla pod to the dough for extra flavour, and making it in a mixer instead of using their complicated manual method. You just cream together butter, sugar and vanilla, beat in an egg and a pinch of salt, and then very gently fold in some flour and almond meal.

Here are my little patons of pastry resting in the fridge.

Resting patons of pastry

Assembly

I'd made the mincemeat and pastry earlier in the week, and assembled and baked the pies on a Saturday afternoon, to bring to a Christmas party.

I found that the pastry was very difficult to work with, especially because it was 38 degrees that day - so hot! I rolled out the pastry between sheets of greaseproof paper, and chilled it for another half hour before cutting it out, but it still started melting and breaking up very quickly, before I could even cut out all the circles.

Cutting out pâte sablée

 See, all melty and sweaty!

Lined tins, using pastry cut out with a cookie cutter

I didn't have time to keep chilling the dough, so for the remainder of the pies, I ended up breaking off small balls of dough and pressing them into my mini muffin tins to line the base and sides. This was much easier, and actually turned out really well - you couldn't tell the difference once baked. As a general rule, if a pastry is easy to work with, it can end up tough. Once baked, these were incredibly light and crumbly - definitely worth the hassle! (Although if it's a colder day and you're more skilled than I am, you may find that you can roll it out with no trouble).

Filled mince pies!

To make the frangipane topping, you just stir together egg, almond meal, sugar and flour. That's it!

Frangipane-topped pies

I prefer the pies to be filled with mince and topped with only a thin layer of frangipane, but use a thicker layer as you wish. (You will need to scale up the frangipane recipe below if you want a thick layer in each pie).

And here they are, baked! Yay!

Frangipane Mince Pies!

This is what they looked like on the inside. So delicious! I loved the crumbly pastry against the richly spiced, almost creamy, fruit mince. The double vanilla hit from the pastry and the mince was so luxurious, and they smelled and tasted divine! These are my favourite mince pies I've ever made.

Cross-section of mince pie. Super yum!

Variations

I made a few with a pastry topping, just to see how they'd look, but I must admit I prefer the contrasting texture and flavour of the frangipane topping. (As mentioned above, it's also a huge a pain to try and roll out the pastry and cut it out in tiny circles!)

Pastry-topped mince pies

Pastry-topped mince pies. Baked!

Internal shot of pastry-topped mince pie. Check out the crumbliness!

I also filled some with apple instead of mincemeat (again an idea from Feast, for those people who, unfathomably, don't like fruit mince). Peel and core an apple, then finely chop or grate it. Place in a small saucepan with a squeeze of orange juice, a drop of vanilla extract and a teaspoon of sugar. Cook until softened, and use instead of fruit mince. (This can obviously be scaled up depending on how many you want to make! I found that one medium apple filled six mini pies).

Baby apple pie

These were incredible! Crisp, buttery vanilla pastry, filled with soft, cinnamon'd apples and topped with soft frangipane. Gorgeous! Definitely one to try at any time of year. If you happen to have any crème anglaise lying around, (it is Christmas, after all), know that it makes a gorgeous, totally over-the-top accompaniment.

So. What are you waiting for? Go forth and bake!

Mince pies, apple pies

Sarah's Favourite Mince Pies
Apple Rhubarb Vanilla Mincemeat recipe from Nigella Lawson's Feast, Pâte Sablée recipe from The Roux Brothers on Patisserie, and frangipane recipe from Nigella Lawson's How to Eat, with many of my own modifications to the method

(See above notes for further clarification on each element).

Ingredients
For the mincemeat
500 grams apple and rhubarb (any ratio you like)
150 grams brown sugar
1 vanilla pod
1 teaspoon mixed spice
110 grams raisins
110 grams sultanas
110 grams currants
1 tablespoon calvados, or a brandy of your choice

For the vanilla bean shortbread pastry (pâte sablée)
140 grams unsalted butter, very soft
1 vanilla pod
100 grams icing sugar, sifted
1 egg
A pinch of salt
30 grams almond meal
250 grams plain flour

For the frangipane
1 egg
45 grams castor sugar
45 grams almond meal
45 grams butter, melted


Method
For the mincemeat
Trim and finely slice the rhubarb. Peel, core and finely chop the apples. Place into a large saucepan with the brown sugar. Slice the vanilla pod lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Add the seeds and pod to the fruit in the saucepan. Add the mixed spice, and cook over a low heat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the fruits start to soften.
Add the dried fruits and simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in the calvados and take off the heat. Remove and discard the vanilla pod. Allow the fruit mince to cool before using it to fill the mince pies. (N.B. You will only need half the mince for this recipe, place the remainder in a sterilized jar and save for another time... or double the amount of pastry and go crazy!)

For the pastry
Slice the vanilla pod lengthwise and scrape out the seeds.
Place the butter, vanilla seeds and icing sugar in the bowl of a freestanding mixer, and beat until very soft. Add the egg and salt, and beat until combined. Sift over the almond meal and flour, and very gently mix in using a spatula. (No more electric mixer here! Once the flour is added, you'll want to work the dough as little as possible so it remains crumbly).
Scrape into a rough ball shape, cover tightly with clingfilm and refrigerate overnight.

To assemble and bake
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Make the frangipane by whisking the ingredients together to combine. That's it!
If it's a cold day and you're very confident, roll out the pastry between two sheets of greaseproof paper until approx 3-5 millimetres thick. Cut circles of pastry out using a 5cm fluted cutter and use the circles to line the indentations of a mini-muffin pan.
Otherwise, pinch of small balls of dough and press them up the sides of the muffin tins to line them.
Spoon a teaspoon of mince into each pie, and top with a scant teaspoon of frangipane to cover. Sprinkle with flaked almonds.
Bake for 10-20 minutes (depending on your oven), until golden brown and cooked through. (You may need to take a pie out to check that the bottom is lightly golden brown, not pale and undercooked).

Allow to cool slightly before dusting with icing sugar and inhaling.

Makes approx 42, depending on the dimensions of your tray and how generous you are with the filling and pastry