The Christmas Vlog #1 & My Mum’s Mince Pie Recipe

I must admit that I’ve always watched the madness that is vlogmas from the sidelines. Indulging in christmas content by the bucketload and giving creators a well deserved round of applause for uploading a video every single day during what is for most, the busiest time of the year. I’ve never felt the urge to take the plunge myself, but I thought this year I’d tentatively dip my toe in the world of festive vlogging. Say hello to ‘The Christmas Weekly Vlogs‘ – four videos uploaded every Sunday giving you a peek into what I’m getting up to this December, along with a themed blog post to go with it. Scroll down below for the first instalment, but in the meantime I thought I’d kick off the sister blog posts with my Mum’s Mince Pie recipe that’s surprisingly vegan and has been passed to her from her Mum, who had it passed to her from her Mum – etc etc… 

MUM’S MINCE PIES (makes about 12): Complete with crumbly pastry and juicy, fruit-plump filling these mince pies are basically christmas in a bite. Best served slightly warm and with a drizzle of cream, brandy sauce or just a big ol’ lump of ice cream. So traditional, eh?

You will need: 175g Self Raising Flour (plus a little extra for dusting), 100g Block Margarine (I used something called Baking Fat – nice – that I found in my local supermarket, it’s basically just vegetable oils), a Jar of Mincemeat (I found a Fig, Orange & Hazelnut one from M&S and it was glorious), a Dusting of Sugar

Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Then it’s time to make the pasty. It’s so much easier to make than you think. Add the flour and the margarine (cut it into squares first and make sure it’s nice and cold) into a bowl and then get to work with a Pastry Blender. You can use your fingers, but it’s quicker and less messy to use one of those. Work at the mixture until it resembles the texture of breadcrumbs. Then drizzle in a little water until it forms a dough that you can mould in your hands.

Sprinkle some flour over a clean surface and roll out your pasty until it’s about the thickness of a £1 coin. Then take your Cutters (or use the lids to kitchen items if you haven’t got any – peanut butter lids are fab!) and cut 12 circles out of your pasty and then another 12 with a slightly larger cutter or lid. Begin to place the larger of the two pasty circles in a lightly greased Shallow Muffin Tin, fill with around a tablespoon of mincemeat, then pop the smaller pasty circles on top, using a bit of water on your fingertips around the edge as a ‘glue‘ almost. Prick the tops of the pies with a fork and sprinkle on some sugar if you fancy.

Bake for around 20 minutes until golden. Remove and leave to cool before devouring them all. It’s alright, you can make another batch for guests.

Right, well – that’s what I’m doing today. Thanks Mum! Thanks Grandma! Thanks Great Grandma! I hope you enjoy seeing what we got up to in the first couple of days of December (spoiler: not much). Next week, we put up the tree, I mean I say we, but it’s basically me because I love everything to be symmetrical – I know, I’m such a cool laid back kinda girl – and I show you my top festive jumper picks. Prepare yourselves for sequins, baubles and bobbles in abundance…

Photos by Lauren Shipley